XXX. SERMONS LATELY PREACHED AT THE PARISH CHURCH Of Saint Mary Magdalen Milkstreet, 〈◊〉 TO WHICH IS ANNEXED, A 〈◊〉 PREACHED AT THE FUNERAL OF Sir 〈…〉, Knight, Sometime Lord Mayor of the City.  
By 〈…〉, B.D.  〈…〉. 
Nolo Lectorem meum mihi esse deditum, & Correctorem nolo sibi.  〈…〉 
15. Some preach Christ, even of envy and strife, and some also of good will.  
18.— Notwithstanding every way, whether in pretence, or in truth, Christ is preached, and I therein do rejoice, and will rejoice.   printer's device (not found in McKerrow) 
LONDON, Printed for 〈…〉 and are to be sold at his shop in Saint Dunstan's Churchyard, Fleetstreet. 〈…〉   

TO THE RIGHT WORSHIPFUL and MUCH HONOURED JOHN ROBINSON Esq; Alderman of the City of LONDON.  
SIR,  
WHen I had yielded up my modesty (or rather my consciousness of my too many and too great defects) as a spoil to the wills and importunity of others, and had harkened to them so far as to venture and expose these Sermons and myself to censure, I did then without any deliberation or study tell myself to whom they were due; nor did any thought interpose itself, but this one, that they were not worth your eye or owning. I had once resolved to have sent them naked into the world without any name before them but my own; and could have been well content to have left that out also (for I am not over-proud of them) But than I conceived that though they could speak but little for themselves, yet they might for me (who dare not do so much for them) and at least be as a witness or Manifesto of my deep apprehension of your many noble favours, and great charity to me and mine, when the sharpness of the weather, and the roughness of the times had blown all from us, and well-neer left us naked. And to this end with all the heartiness, and height of thankfulness I here present them, and humbly put them into your hands, that when you turn them over, you may read something besides my imperfectios, even that truth which will make you happy, and with it my gratitude. I would not be the grave of that charity which can never die, but when we are dead will follow us; and (I thank God) I understand a benefit, and can behold it in all its circumstances; and to me it appears fresher and fairer every Day, putting me in mind from whence it came, and by what hands it was conveyed, and it fills me with Prayers and Praises, and Gratulations; and I bless God, and cry Grace, Grace, unto the hand and instrument. Worthy Sir, this is the fairest and best return that my poverty can make, and (I nothing doubt) but you will look upon it as the fairest and best; for this I can make, and by the blessing of God you want no other. I see myself deeply obliged to you, and by your favour to many other Noble and Religious Gentlemen, and I have but the same payment for all which I will ever pay (for a thankful man is always in debt) even to my last payment, when I shall render up my soul to God that gave it. The same God who put it into your hearts, fill your hearts with that Joy which is the purchase of Charity. I cannot end, but with my hearty prayer to the God of blessings for a blessing on you and your whole family, which is the daily prayer of  
Sir, Yours obliged to serve and honour you, ANT. FARINDON. April. 20. 1657.   

THE PREFACE.  
THat the way of man is not in himself, 
Jer. 10.23.  That it is not in him to direct his steps in that way which he chalks out, I have found true in myself, and am made an instance of it in the truest and most natural sense of the words: and that our purposes sink and fail almost as soon as they are up; that in matters of this indifferency (and would it were not so in those of the greatest concernment) we think we resolve when we do but think; and what strength hath such a thought against a friend, and Importunity?  
I saw well enough the hazard before me which I was to run: I knew there was too much of this kind of work abroad in the world already, and if there were none, yet there would be too much by mine. I saw the roughness of the times, and the uncertainty of the weather, and what a weak and thin bottom I put out in, and could not hope for that security abroad, which my cell and silence will scarcely afford me. I could not be ignorant how many several winds, and out of several coasts, might meet and spend themselves against me; I conceived in myself that it was in vain to hope to charm the reader, and to as little purpose to court him into a favourable opinion, as it was for Xerxes to fetter the Hellespont, or to write letters to mount Athos. For after all pretences, all Apologies, all insinuations, he will be the same, and think and judge as he please, when we have said what we can. All this I foresaw, or thought I did, and that Apologies were like complaints in this, and were never welcome, no not then when they were necessary, which was enough, one would think, to have strengthened and reinforced my first thoughts, and so fised them against all other temptations, all foreign assaults whatsoever.  
But so it is. I see them now shaken, and turned another way, even to that which I was most afraid of, and must now prepare and arm myself against. I that suffered myself to be persuaded into the danger, have now but one task to undergo, and that is to persuade and work myself into an  patience, if it overtake me; and to sit in silence when the noise is loudest, when those hailstones of censures fly about me. Yet thus much I have to say for myself, that had I not placed a higher esteem on other men's judgements than mine own, had I not been advised so to do, by some, in whose judgement I was ever willing to rest (and yet sometimes affection gets over it, even in the wisest) and had I not been by nature of an easy and ductile disposition, too apt to be drawn out at length to any purpose (which hath no evil upon it) by the hand and direction of those, whose worth and goodness have wrought themselves an interest in me: Had not the very name of friend been more powerful with me than my own thoughts; I who could never yet shoulder it in a throng, but had rather quit my place then struggle for it; who am more addicted to the forest and retirement, then to the City and noise; I who have no other business now to do, but to agree and sit down quietly with my poverty, and to draw down my mind within that narrow compass in which the iniquity of the times hath left me, should not have thus taken myself from myself, nor took so much pains to draw on more, which though it may begin and end but in words, yet words sometimes are troublesome, as the barking of a dog may be to a bird, though on the wing, and out of reach: I should not certainly have thus put myself upon my Country, nor ventured my trial there where the judges may be of several minds, and diversely biased, and yet meet at the same mark, and join in the same sentence of condemnation, which I will not say envy (for what matter can my low fortunes, or these sorry papers yield for that humour to gnaw on?) but the disesteem of my person, the low conceit of my abilities in some, the dislike of the matter in others, and of the method and manner of handling it in many, and ignorance in not a few, will soon make up and pronounce against me.  
But I have passed over my Rubicon, and left it behind me, and must now stand censure, the shock of all that opposition which can be but breath and words, but darts made up of air, pointed peradventure with wit, and envenomed with some droppings of malice; against which there need no other buckler than this thought, that whatsoever I shall appear, yet I am still the same, not higher, not lower, in all the demonstrations and fullness either of Praise or Detraction. Or this, That Censure for the most part is but Pride in its wantonness, self-pleasing, and not much displeasing any that are wise, who may be strong enough to hear without disgust what others are ready to vent with so much delight, what Wit suggests to their Passion, and what Passion utters by the Tongue.  
And such Readers I may have, and too many such, some of the same faith and opinion, who yet will mislike something; others not alike principled, who will condemn all. To the first I have nothing to say; and to these but this, That I cannot be of their opinion, nor move as they do, till more weight of reason be hung on. Yet, I nothing doubt but to find many more candid and charitable, and who will give fairer welcome and entertainment to these Sermons, than peradventure they do deserve, and peruse them with an eye no more severe and averse, than their ear was when they first heard them from my mouth. And for satisfaction to these I shall give up this account for myself, that they are now published to the eye with the same mind and intention which first breathed them forth unto the ear; and that was first, to work men off from those errors which are so common in the world, and have gained honour, and kindness, and reception because they are so; secondly, to draw up their love and industry to necessary truths, that they may not spend and waste them there where they may perhaps satisfy their humour, but not fill their souls, but fix and tie them to that which is most essential, which hath the favour of God, and happiness evermore annex unto it, and ready to Crown it; thirdly, to draw up the means to the end, the duty to the reward, by that necessary relation which is betwixt them (this being the way, and there being no other unto it) and this with that plainness and evidence laying it open as near unto the eye, as the matter being spiritual would permit, and my weak abilities and diligence could bring it. In which if I have failed, or come short (as I must needs do) of those who have a more quick and searching eye, and a greater art & felicity in clothing and uttering their conceptions, I must make use of that Apology of an Apocryphal writer, Concedendum est mihi, 
Mach. 2. 15.  If I have done slenderly and meanly, it is that which I could attain to, and I have no other argument but my good will and endeavour to speak for me.  
And first, how weakly soever I have carried it on, yet I made it my aim and principal intendment, to lay all level before me, & to remove those practical errors which are most common and regnant, which men walk in as in the ways of righteousness, and glory in as in the truth itself; which grow up in the world like those weeds which run and spread themselves over the surface of the water, but have no root, even those errors which are the proper issues of lust and idleness, with which men infect, and in which they applaud one another, and so move together with content and danger; which are improved by custom, and at last raised up to the power and dignity of a Law. It was well observed by Seneca, Cùm error singulorum fecerit publicum, errorem singulorum facit publicus, the beginning of errors is from private persons, but the continuance and life of them is from the multitude, who are first dazzled with the authority and practice of some few, and then take it from one another, and hold it up as a ball from hand to hand, and the publicness of it gains authority, and interchangeably prevails with private men to receive and embrace it; it first steals or begs an entrance, and when it is common and public it reigns. From hence are those noxious yet beloved errors, of which men are so tender and jealous, that if you do but breath against them, or but look towards them with an eye which betrays but the least dislike, they presently swell and rage's as against an enemy, and are never at ease, but in his snare who is so. Proficit semper contradictio stultorum ad stultitiae demonstrationem, saith Hilary: the perverseness and contradiction of weak and wilful men is violent and impetuous, to gain ground, and outrun that truth which should stay and moderate it; but the greatest progress it makes in these its easy and pleasant journeys, is to make itself more open and manifest, like Gyges' wife, who was seen naked of all but herself. From hence have those errors crept into the Church which have lessened her number, and filled her up, not with members but with names; from hence it is that God is made more cruel than man, and yet more merciful than he is; that men are Saints, and yet the Law impossible; that the beginnings of obedience are set down for perfection; that men are made perfect, and yet sin oftener than they obey; that our endeavours are performances, and our weakest and most feeble thoughts are endeavours; that hearing is faith, and faith fancy; that imputed righteousness is all, when we have none of our own; that we may be reputed good when we are notoriously evil; that our election may be sure, though we do not make it so, and that we must assure ourselves, when we have more reason to despair; that assurance is a duty, and to work it out is none: from hence it is that Christian liberty is let lose against Christ himself, and the spirit brought in to contradict itself; and God, to do himself what he doth command; that grace is miraculous and irresistible, and the will is but a word which signifies nothing, or if it do, it is that which cannot will. All these we find in the books and writings of some who have gained a name and repute in the world, presented indeed in a veil, but so thin, and with so little art of concealment, that they are understood by too many in that sense which the flesh will soon admit and make use of to all its purposes; and though when they are urged with the danger of such positions, and the horror of such consequences which naturally issue from them, they seem to disown and reject them as none of theirs, and do many times in their postils confute their Doctrine with their Use, and their Premises with their Inferences; yet it is with that art which Tiberius used in the refusal of the Empire, 
Susprusa semper & obscura verba etc. Tac. 1. Annal.  with doubtful and perplexed words, and as he, naming but one part when they mind the whole, will not and yet would say all, as he would not and yet would be Emperor. And after all shifts and evasions, after so many affirmations and negations, after so many limitations and distinctions, and riddles, Sol Apollo, & Apollo Sol, as it is in the proverb, we have but several expressions for the same thing; and what they would have and what they would not have, what they do say and what they will not say; to be perfect yet most deficient; to think and to endeavour; to begin in the Spirit, and to end in the Spirit; to be forced & to be led; to be willing and not to will; to be irregular & to be free; to be certain without assurance, and assured without diligence; to be Saints and yet unholy, to be Adulterers and to be members of Christ, differ no more in their sense, than the Sun and Apollo do in the Poets, which are but several names of one and the same planet.  
I thought it therefore, and took it upon me as a work not unworthy of my place and calling, and which might bring some advantage to my Auditors, to endeavour at least the removal of those errors, which to me seemed to come so near as to take part with men's lusts and affections, and worse part, and to flatter and feed our corruption, which is wanton of itself, and ever ready to break forth without such incitements; and which did give it so much power and line in many, though through Gods preventing grace it wrought not the same so pernicious and kill effect in all. And I considered not what did always, but what if we respect the errors themselves, and the inclinations of the flesh, was most likely, and would most naturally flow from them; to which if I have not brought so much strength as some may look for (who stand as much at distance, and are as much afraid of them as myself) or as the work itself may require; If I have left them something to say, who will never want something to say though they can say nothing, yet I looked upon it as my duty; and though I do not rise so high as to the satisfaction of others, yet some satisfaction it will bring to myself that I did endeavour it.  
And I was the more forward in this work, because I saw men not only entertain these doctrines, but love them, and prejudge all others which look from them another way, as those which lead from that truth which is saving, into danger, and so to labour almost irrecoverably under prejudice, whose Tyranny keeps men in more awe and obeisance, than the sway of those affections which are sudden and mutable could do. For we see the affections are blind, and when they carry us along with violence they do not judge but choose: unicuique sua Cupiditas tempestas est, every man's inordinate affection is not only as a wind to drive him forward, but a tempest to whirl him about from error to error, which commonly is like that affection that raiseth it. But the Philosopher will tell us, no tempest is long, but soon breathes itself forth; 
Nulla tempestas diu durat. Sen. N. Q.  and when the cloud is removed the eye is clear. In his wrath Esau will kill his brother, but when time had worn that out, he is a brother again, and he meets and kisseth him. David's lust brought him to the for bidden bed, but the voice of a Prophet makes him wash it with his tears. It is open to our observation, that what men do out of passion they do they know not how; and the greatest reason they have, is, that they do it: and if in passion we pass any judgement, it is not long-lived, but wastes, and decays, and dies with it. But Prejudice is a rooted and a lasting evil, an evil we are jealous of, because we think it good, and we build upon it as upon a sure foundation; so that he that looks but towards it, that doth but breathe against it, appears as an enemy that comes to dig and cast it down. Sometimes we see it is raised by the affections, sometimes the affections intermingle and wove themselves with it, but most commonly they come in the Rear of Prejudice, and follow as the effects of it, and help to strengthen and continue it. And thus we love him who is of our opinion, because it is ours; and we hate him who opposeth it, upon the same reason: we are afraid of every proffer, and angry with every word that is spoken against it. And this gathers every Conventicle, this moulds every Sect, coins every Heresy; and it is that Sword which our Saviour speaks of, Mat. 10.34. which makes division of a man from his Father, and a daughter from her mother, and makes enemies of those who are of a man's own household. It is that East-wind which brings in the Locusts which cover the face of the Church, and make it dark, and eats up those fruits of Peace and Holiness which otherwise we might gather. And indeed it work most trouble in the House of Peace, 
Odium Theologerum. A Proverb in Luther's time.  in the Church, in Controversies concerning Religion; for in Philosophical Treaties, new Discoveries are very welcome, and if there rise any debate, it goes no farther than to cursed words, and seldom breaks out to personal hazard; but these of more divine speculation, which should be managed with peace and charity, are commonly held up with great heat, and pride of Wit, which some call Shame, which men have to seem to have erred. Which may be the reason why we have so few instances of Retractation, but 
a Augustine.  one amongst the Ancients, and of later days 
b Bellarmine.  one more, but such a one as did but like some Plumbers, make his business worse by mending it. So harsh a thing it is to the nature of Men to seem to have mistaken, and so powerful is Prejudice; for to confess an Error, is to say we wanted Wit.  
And therefore we should fly from Prejudice as from a Serpent, for it deceives us as the Serpent did Eve, gives a No to Gods Yea; makes men true, and God a liar, and nulls the sentence of death. You shall die the death, when this is the Interpreter, is, Your eyes shall be opened; and to deceive ourselves, is to be as Gods, knowing good and evil. And it may well be called a Serpent, for the biting of it is like that of the Tarantula, the working of its venom makes us dance and laugh ourselves to death, for a settled prejudicated though false opinion may build up as strong resolutions as a true. Saul was as zealous for the Law, as Paul was for the Gospel; a heretic will be as loud for a fiction as the Orthodox for the truth; the Turk as violent for his Mahomet as a Christian for his Saviour. Habet Diabolus suos Martyrs, for the devil hath his Martyrs as well as God; and it is prejudice which is that evil spirit that casts them into the fire and the water; that consumes or drowns them; that leads them forth like Agag delicately to their death.  
And this is most visible in those of the Church of Rome, & we may see even the marks upon them, obstinacy, insolency scorn and contempt, a proud and high disdain of any thing that appears like reason, or of any man that shall speak it to teach and recover them; which are certainly the signs of the biting of this serpent prejudice, or (as some will call it) the marks of the beast. Quam gravis incubat? how heavy doth prejudice lie upon them who are taught to renounce their very sense, and to mistrust, nay to deny their reason? who see with other men's eyes, and hear with other men's ears, 
Apuleius de mundo.  qui non animo sed auribus cogitant, who do not judge with their mind but with their ears? the first prejudice is, that theirs is the Catholic Church and cannot err, and then all other search and enquiry is vain, as a learned writer observes: for what need they go further to find the truth, then to the high priests chair; to which it is bound? and this they back and strengthen with many others of Antiquity, making that most true which is most ancient, and yet omnia vetera nova fuere; 
Quintil.  that which is now old was at first new, and by this argument truth was not truth when it first began, nor the light light when it first sprung from on high and visited us. And besides, truth though it had found professors but in this latter age, yet it was first born, because error is nothing else but a deviation from the truth, and cometh forth last, and lays hold on the heel of truth to supplant it. Besides these, Councils which may err, and the truth many times is voted down when 'tis put to most voices; Nazianzen was bold to censure them as having seen no good effect of any of them; and we ourselves have seen, and our eyes have dropped for it, what a mere Name, 
Nunquam tam benè cum ebus humanis ag●batu●, ut plures essent meliores. Sen. de Clement. 1.  what prejudice can do with the many, and what it can countenance: and many others they have of Miracles, which were but lies of Glory, which is but vanity; of Universality, which is bounded and confined to a certain place: with these and the like, that first prejudice that the Church cannot err, is underpropt and upheld; and yet again these depend upon that, such a mutual complication there is of errors, as in a bed of snakes. If the first be not true, than these were nothing, and if these pillars be once shaken (and they are but mud) that Church would soon sink in its reputation, and not fit so high as magisterially to dictate to all the Churches of the world.  
And as we have set up this Queen of Churches as an ensample of the effects of prejudice, so may we hold it up as a glass to see our own. She says we are a Schismatical, we please and assure ourselves, that we are a reformed Church, and so we are, and yet prejudice may find a place even in the Reformation itself. Rome is not only guilty of this, but even some members of the Reformation, who think themselves nearest to Christ, when they run farthest from that Church, though it be from the truth itself. And this is nothing else but prejudice, to judge ourselves pure because our Church is purged, to be less reform because that is reform, or to think that heaven & happiness will be raised and rest upon a Word or Name, and that we are Saints as soon as we are Protestants. Almost every Sect and every Faction labours under this prejudice, and feels it not, but runs away with its burden; and too many there be who predestinate themselves to heaven, when they have made a surrendry of themselves to such a Church, to such a company or collection, nay sometimes but to such a man. I accuse not Luther or Calvin of error, but honour them rather, though I know they were but men; and I know they have erred, or else our Church doth in many things, and it were easy to name them. But suppose they had broached as many lies as the Father of them could suggest, yet they who have raised them in their esteem to such an height, must needs have too open a breast to have received them as oracles, and to have licked up poison itself if it had fallen from their pens; since they have the same motive and inducement to believe them when they err, which they have to believe them when they speak the truth, and that is no more than their name. 
Orat. pro Muraena.  Tolle Catonem de causa, said Tully; Cato was a name of virtue, and carried authority with it, and therefore he thought him not a fit witness in that cause against Muraena, for his very name might overbeare and sink it. Tolle Augustinum de causa, take away the name of Austin, of Luther, and Calvin, and Arminius, for they are but names, not arguments. There is but one name by which we may be saved, and his name alone must have authority, and prevail with us, who was the Author and finisher of our faith. We may honour others, and give unto them that which is theirs, but we must not deify them, nor pull Christ out of his Throne, to place them in his room. Of this we may be sure, there is not, there cannot be any influence in a name to make a conclusion true or false; and if we fix it in our mind as in its firmament, it will sooner dazzle than enlighten us. Nor is it of so great use as men may imagine; for they who read or hear, can either judge, or are weak of understanding. To them who are able to judge and to discern error from truth, a name is but a name and no more, and is no more esteemed, for they look upon the truth as it is, and receive it for itself; but for those who are of a narrow capacity, and fail in their intellectuals, a Name will sooner lead them into error then into truth; or if into truth, it is but by chance, for it should have found the same welcome and entertainment, had it been an error, for the names sake; for a name is their rule and not the thing. All they now gain is, that having such a leader, they shall fall with more honour into the ditch.  
It will be good then to be wary and watchful against ourselves, and so to deprehend ourselves, and not to love ourselves so as to be the greatest enemies we have; not to take that upon trust to which we entrust our souls, and on which we depend as our surest guide to that happiness which now our hope and expectation looks on; but to try and examine even the truth itself, and to know what ground we stand on; whether our foundation be firm and sure, whether that which we have been taught, be not now to be unlearned; whether we have not took up that which we should have run from; delighted in that which we should hate; loved that which we should have feared; whether we have not been too long familiar with that which will undo us; whether our natural temper and complexion, education and custom have not carried us so far from ourselves with that swift but insensible motion, that we had no leisure to look back and consult with our reason, which was given us for our best help and guide; whether delight, or profit, or honour, and security did not make up our Creed for us; whether in our pursuit of the truth, they were not the only lure which we did strike upon, and now adhere to as to the truth itself: it will be good thus to try and examine every conclusion which we have have made our rule, to let one day teach another, and maturity oversee and judge our greener years, and the wisdom of age correct the easiness of our youth, reason recognize our education, consideration control custom, judgement censure our delight, and the new man crucify the old. In a word, to think that we may have erred, and not to be so wise, as, because we are deceived, to be so for ever.  
Of this we may be sure (for it is obvious to our eye) that our education can be no forcible motive to bind us everlastingly to any conclusion; for our pupillage doth too often most unfortunately fall under such tutors, who instill not any principles into us but their own, which are not always true, but more often false, being such which they also took up upon trust from their instructers. And then custom prevails more in evil then in good, and in those ways, in which the flesh is carried on with a swinge and violence, then in those in which we use to move but heavily; and there be a thousand false fires at which we kindle our delight, and can be but one true one. And therefore in these conclusions which we ourselves deduce and draw out of known principles (in which all agree, and in which out first judgement is our last) we must be free and disengaged, not in subjection to any man, or any thing, not under the awe of our first Instructers, or of Custom, or any Name under the Sun; or of our satisfaction and delight, which we so often misplace; or of profit and advantage, which name we commonly give to that which undoes us. Nor must we be so positive, so wedded to our own decrees, as to be averse and strange when a fair overture is made of better, because having no surer conduct than these, it is more probable we should err then judge aright; and from hence error hath multiplied itself, and is that monster with so many heads, even from this presumption in men, that they cannot err; and we see many most conclusive and confident in that which they have but lightly looked upon, but never came so near as to survey it, and so discover what it is. For if men were either impartial to themselves, or so prudently humble, as to hearken to the judgement of others, and to try and examine all, the Prince of this world and the Father of lies would not have so much in us, nor should we be in danger of so froward a generation. If men were not so soon good, they would not be so often evil; if they were not sure, they would not err; and if they were not so wise, they would not be so much deceived.  
Nor doth this submission and willingness to hear reason blast or endanger that truth which reason or revelation hath planted in us, but improves it rather to a fairer growth and beauty, as we see Gold hath more lustre by its trial. And this readiness to hear what may be said either for or against it, is a fair evidence that we fell not upon it by chance, nor received it as we do the devils temptations, at the first show and appearance, but have maturely and carefully deliberated, and fastened it to our souls by frequent meditation, and are rooted and established in it. Neither doth it argue any fluctuation or wavering of the mind, or unfixednesse of judgement; for mutatio sententiae non est inconstantia, saith Tully, to disannul a former judgement upon better evidence, is not inconstancy, nor doth he stagger in his way who follows a clearer light. And had not Tully forgot himself, and what he here said, which may well go for a rule, he would not have made it a part of that elegy and commendations which he gives to another orator, 
— Nullum verbum emisit quod revocare vellet—  that he never spoke word which he would recall; which in Saint Augustine's judgement is truer of a fool then a wise man; 
Quae lous creaibilior est de nimio futuo quam desaperte perfecto August. Epist. 7.  for who more positive and peremptory than fools, who being what they are, will be ever so? No, to be willing to hear, to learn, and prove every thing, is the stability rather, and continued act of reason; it is its natural and certain course to judge for that which is most reasonable; and the mind in this doth no more wander, than the planets do, who are said to do so, because they appear now in this now in that part of the heavens, but yet keep their constant and natural motion. Thus it entertains truth for itself, nor suffers error to enter but in that name and resemblance; and when truth appears in its rays and glory, and that light which doth most throughly and best discover it, it runs from error as from a monster, and bows to the Sceptre and command of truth; is never so wedded to any conclusion though never so specious, as not to be ready to put it by and forsake it, when another presents itself before it, and hath better evidence to speak for it, and commend it to its choice and practice. Thus Saint Paul was a champion of the Law, and after that a Martyr of the Gospel. Thus he persecuted Christians, and thus he died one. Thus Saint Peter would not converse and eat with the heathen, as polluted and unclean; and when the sheet was let down, and in it the will of Christ, preached unto them and baptised them, Acts 10. And this is the mother of all repentance; for what is repentance but the changing of our mind upon better information? This, if it were well practised, would fill the world (which is now full of error) with Recognitions and Recantations, which are not only confessions, but the triumphs over a conquered error, as the rejoicings and Jubilees of men who did sit in darkness, but have now found the light. This would be an Amulet and sure preservative against prejudice, and those common and prevailing errors to which it gives life and strength, and which spread themselves as the plague, and infect whole Families, Cities, and Nations. In brief, this would make our errors more venial, and men more peaceable; for he that seeks the truth with this impartial diligence, is rather unfortunate then faulty if he miss it; and men would never advance their opinion with that heat and malice against dissenters, if they could once entertain this thought, that it is possible that they themselves may err, and that that opinion (in which they now say they will die) may be false; if they did not rest in the first evidence as best, and so suffer it to pass unquestioned, and never seek for a sure word of prophecy, or a well grounded assurance that this is one. For if this were done, as it should, either error would not overtake, or if it did, it could not hurt us.  
But this is an argument of a large compass, a subject full and yielding much matter, and I was but to declare my mind and intention, which may better thrive, and be more seen under the manage of more nimble and ready wits, and the activity of a better hand and pen.  
Second; and as I thought it worth my pains and endeavour to strike at those common errors at which so many stumble, and into which they willingly fall, and with great complacency; so did I set up (in the course of my office and ministry) this desire (and I could not bring much more than desire) to present (in as fair an appearance as I could) those more necessary and essential truths, by the embracing of which we lay hold on happiness, and come nearest to it; and to set them up as a mark at which all men's actions should especially aim. For if this be once obtained, the other will follow of itself, because these truths are not so obnoxious and open to prejudice, and men would not run into so many obliquities, if they did principally and earnestly intent that to which they were everlastingly and indispensably bound; nor could they so often err, if they were willing to be good. It was as wise counsel as could have been given, to those who sat to solve knotty doubts, and to determine controversies in Religion in the Council at Dort, 
Beati pacifici. King James his Motto or Dicton.  and it was given by a King, and it would have made good his motto, and styled him a peacemaker, though there had been nothing else to contribute to that title; Paucissima definienda, quia paucissima necessaria, that they should not be too busy and earnest in defining and determining many things, because so few were necessary; which counsel, if men had thought it worth their ear and favour, and willingly bowed to it, had made the Church as Jerusalem, a City compact within itself, and there would have been abundance of peace so long as the moon endureth. For questions in divinity are like meats in this, the more delicate and subtle they are the sooner they putrify, and by too much agitation and sifting annoy and corrupt the rule; whilst men are more swift and eager in the pursuit and advance of that humour that raised them, then in following of those truths which are but few and easy, and with which they might build themselves up in their holy faith. Lex nos innocentes esse jubet non curiosos, innocency, and not curiosity is the fulfilling of the Law; 
Senec. Controv.  as it is not luxury which raiseth an healthful constitution, but temperance, and those meats which are as wholesome as common.  
The sum of all Christianity is made up in this, to level and place all our hope where it should be, on God through Jesus Christ our Lord, to love him, and keep his commandments, which are both open and easy when we are willing. In other more nice than useful disquisitions, I am well pleased to be puzzled and to be at loss (and yet am not at loss, because I cannot lose that which I would not, which I cannot have) and I resolve for God, and not myself, or indeed for myself because for God; and my answer is most satisfactory, that I believe the thing, and God only knows the manner how it is, and doth not therefore reveal it because it is not fit for me to know.  
When I am to appear before God in his house, and at his table, I recollect my thoughts and turn them upon my self; I severely inquire in what terms I stand with God and my neighbour; whether there be nothing in me, no imagination which stands in opposition with Christ, and so is not suitable with the feast, nor with him that makes it. And when this is done, my business is at an end (for to attempt more is to do nothing, or rather that which I should not do) but I do not ask with the Schools, how the ten predicaments are in the Eucharist, how the bread is con— or transubstantiated, or how the body of Christ is there; for they who speak at distance most modestly, and tell us it is not corporally, but yet 'tis really there, yet do not so define as to ascertain the manner, but leave it in a cloud and out of sight. I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he will raise me up at the last day, for he hath promised who raised himself, and is the first fruits of them that slept; but I do not inquire what manner of trumpet it shall be which shall then sound, nor of the Solemnity and manner of the proceeding at that day; or how the body which shall rise, can be the same numerical body with that which did walk upon the earth. It is enough for me to know, that it is sown in dishonour, and shall be raised in glory, and my business is to rise with Christ here, and make good my part in this First Resurrection; for than I am secure, and need not extend my thoughts to the end of the world to survey and comprehend the Second.  
To add one instance more in the point of justification of a sinner, in which after sixteen hundred years preaching of the Gospel and more, we do not yet well agree, and yet might well agree, if we would take it as the Scripture hath reached it forth, and not burden it with our own fancies and speculations, with new conclusions forced out of the light to obscure and darken it; for when this burden is upon it, it must needs weigh according as the hand is that poiseth it. And what necessity is there to ask whether it consist in one or more acts, so I do assure myself that it is the greatest blessing that God ever let fall upon the children of men? or whether it be perfected in the pardoning of our sins, or the imputation of universal obedience, or by the active and passive obedience of Christ? when 'tis plain that the act of justification is the act of the judge, and this cannot so much concern us as the benefit itself, which is the greatest that can be given; (I am sure) not so much as the duty, which must fit us for the act. It were to be wished that men would speak of the acts of God in his own language, and not seek out divers inventions, which do not edify, but many times shake and rend the Church in pieces, and lay the truth itself open to reproach, which had triumphed gloriously over error, had men contended not for their own inferences and deductions, but for that common faith which was once delivered to the Saints. And as in justification, so in the point of faith by which we are justified, what Profit is it busily to inquire whether the nature of faith consists in an obsequious assent, or in appropriating to ourselves the grace and mercy of God, or in the mere fiducial apprehension and application of the merits of Christ? whether it be an instrument, or a condition; whether a living faith justifies, or whether it justifies as a living faith; what will this add to me, what hair to my stature, when I may settle and rest upon this, which every eye must needs see, that the faith by which I am justified must not be a dead faith, but a faith working by charity, which is the language of faith, and demonstrates her to be alive? My sheep hear my voice, saith Christ, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, saith Basil, they hear and obey, and never dispute or ask questions, they taste, and not trouble and mud that clear water of life. It is enough for us to be justified; it is enough for us to be saved, which we may be by pressing forward in the way which is smooth and plain, and not running out into the mazes and Labyrinths of disputes; where we too oft lose ourselves in our search, and dispute away our faith; talk of faith and the power of it, and be worse than infidels; of justification and please ourselves in unrighteousness; of Christ's active obedience, and be to every good work reprobate; of his passive obedience, and deny him when we should suffer for him; of the inconsistency of faith and good works in our justification, and set them at as great a distance in our lives and conversations, and because they do not help to justify us, think they have no concurrence at all in the work of our salvation. For we are well assured of the one, and contend for it, and too many are too confident of the other. There is indeed a kind of intemperance in most of us, a wild and irregular desire to make things more or less than they are, and remove them well-neer out of sight by our additions and defalkations; and few there are who can be content with the truth, and settle and rest in it, as it appears in that nakedness and simplicity in which it was first brought forth, but are ever drawing out conclusions of their own, spinning out and weaving speculations, thin, unsuitable, unfit to be be worn, which yet they glory in, and defend with more heat and Animosity than they do that truth which is necessary, and by itself sufficient without this additional art. For these are creatures of our own, shaped out in our fancy, and dressed up by us with all the accurateness and curiosity of diligence, that we fall at last in love with them, and apply ourselves to them with that closeness and adherency which dulls and takes off the edge of our affection to that which is most necessary, and so leaves that neglected, and last in our thoughts which is the main; as we read of Euphranor the painter, 
Val. Max. 8.12.  who having stretched his fancy, and spent the force of his imagination in drawing Neptune to the life, could not raise his after and wearied thoughts to the setting forth the majesty of Jupiter; for when we are so lively and overactive in that which is either impertinent or not so considerable, nor much material to that which is indeed most material, we commonly dream or are rather dead to those performances which the wisdom of God hath bound us to as the fittest and most proportioned to that end for which we were made.  
And these I conceive are most necessary, which are necessary to the work we have to do, and will infallibly bring us to the end of our faith and hopes. Others which our wits have hammered and wrought out of them, may be peradventure of some use to those who are watchful over them to keep them in a pliableness and subserviency to that which is plain and received of all; but may prove dangerous and fatal to others who have not that skill to manage them, but favour them so much as to give them line and sufferance to carry them beyond their limit, and then shut them up in themselves, where they are lost to that truth which should save them, which they leave behind them out of their eye and remembrance, whilst they are busy in the pursuit of that which they overtake with danger, and without which the Apostles of Christ, and many thousands before them have attained their end, and are now in bliss. Certainly it would be more safe for us, and more worthy our calling, to be diligent and sincere in that which is plainly revealed; to believe, and in the strength and power of that faith to crucify our flesh with the Affections and lusts (Hic labour, hoc opus est) then to be drawing out of Schemes, and measuring out the actions and operations of God; safer far to make ourselves fit to be justified, then too curiously to study the manner how it is wrought; in which study we are many times more subtle than wise: in a word, to make ourselves capable of favour and mercy; for then the work is done, and the Application made, for all God's promises are yea and Amen, and fall close with the performance of the duty; and as to apply them to ourselves, is our comfort and joy, our heaven upon earth; so to be able and fit to apply them is the work and labour of our faith and love whilst we abide in the flesh.  
But besides these points of doctrine (which are but inferences and deductions made by men) whereof some are easy and natural, and hold correspondence and affinity with the truth as it was first delivered, and are upon that account to be received as faithful say of all men; other are more forced, and therefore Rejectaneous and unprofitable, as begetting more heat than love, and raising more noise than devotion; besides these there be conclusions in point of discipline and church-policy, in the defence of which we see much dust raised by men of divided minds and apprehensions, and many times both parties well-neer smothered in the buzzle. For though discipline & government be necessary, yet the best form that was ever drawn cannot be absolutely necessary, because it cannot always find place wherein to show itself, and the holy Spirit of God never laid an absolute necessity but on those things which, as the Stoics speak, are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, which are within our reach and power, or which we may do or have when we will; it is necessary to bring into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ, but it is not necessary to be under this or that discipline though the best, further than in affection and desire; for in the midst of the changes and chances of this world we cannot be what we would, nor be governed as we please.  
We see well enough (for it is as visible as any thing under the sun) that the sword which hath no edge or point against the essential parts of Religion (with which we may be certainly happy, and without which it is most certain we cannot) as it makes its way, dictates and appoints what it please with a non obstante notwithstanding all contrary constitutions, though never so ancient; and discipline is either quite cut off, or else drawn out with the same hand which did form and shape the Commonwealth. We have seen what a flow of troubles and dispute in matters of this nature hath passed on, and carried away with it our Peace and Religion itself, and then left it as it were upon the sands to shift for itself in the breasts of some few, who by divine assistance are able to raise and cherish it up to some growth in themselves, without these helps and advantages, and to give it a place and power in them even in the foulest weather; being forced to be their own bishops and priests, when the hand of violence hath buried those their Seers either in silence or in the grave. We have seen Religion made an art and craft, and that which was first set up to uphold and promote it, struck at and trod upon as the only worm which did eat it out; we have seen the axe laid to the very root of it by those sons of thunder and noise which is heard in every coast which these clouds hang over; we cannot but observe, what art & diligence hath been used, what fire and brimstone hath been breathed forth to cast it down; we needed no perspective to look through the disguise under which they walk, or to behold with what slight and artifice they wrought themselves into the hearts of the people, who are never better pleased then when they are led as beasts to the slaughter, and do flatter and pride themselves most, when they are under the yoke. We see it hath been the work of an age to shatter, and then blow away that form of Policy in the Church which shown itself to the Profit and admiration of the best, in so many; and was the fairest bulwark the Church had to secure her from the Incursions of Schism, Heresy, and Profaneness; of which (if we had no other argument) the frenzy of this present age, the wild Confusion and medley of the Sects and Factions which we see, may be an unquestionable evidence: And now we have seen it laid level with the ground. All this we have seen, but yet we do not see that discipline which did emulate and heave at it, and was placed in equipage with the Gospel of Christ; we do not see that which was so much extolled as yet set up in its room: Nay, we scarce see any thing left but the Idea of it, which they still carry with them with expectation and great hopes, which prophecy to them the building up of this second Temple of this new form, which might it obtain, would, they say, be far more glorious than the first. All this art and endeavour hath been used to make them great and supreme on earth, the one half of which might have wrought out a Crown for them in a better place. For that may be had if we will, and if we be faithful to the death it will fall upon our heads. But in what ground our lines will fall, or how they will be drawn out is a thing so far out of our reach and power, that no humane providence can design and mark it out. Day unto day teacheth us, and the experience of all ages hath made it good, that they who like not what is, but only what they would have, and propose it to themselves and others, do many times open and pave a fair way to it, and walk forward towards it as full of hope as desire, and yet when they are come so near as even to touch and lay hold of it, may see it removed as far from them as before, and their hopes in their blossom and glory to fall off; may live to see themselves in umbrage, under a more mild and friendly toleration, and behold that past by and sunk lower which they so longed to see in that height which might amaze and awe all about them, and bring them in that harvest which was already gathered in their expectation. I should be unwilling to stir the blood, or draw upon me the displeasure of any who have cast in their lot with those who have been earnest in such a design; and I have no other end but this, to show the vanity and deceitfulness of such attempts, and how dangerous and vexatious a thing it is, to drive so furiously after that which hath come towards us so often, and then turned the back; which we overtake and lose at once. For it is so in the world, and will be so even till the end of it, that which is mutable in its own nature may and will be changed; nor is there any thing certain but Piety and bliss, the way and the end. And therefore those things which are not so essential to Religion as that she cannot stand without them, and are essential only when they may be had, being exemplified and conveyed to us by the best hands, must not take up all that labour which we own to the heat of the day, and those duties of Christianity which are the sum of all, and for which the others were ordained. When they may be had, we must bless God, and use them to that end for which they were given, and when a stronger than we comes upon us, and removes them, look after them with a longing eye and bleeding heart, follow them with our sorrow and devotion, use all lawful and peaceable means to bring them back, bewail our own ingratitude, which raised up that power which took them from us, and was the greatest strength they had; and so press forward in that open and known way which no power can block up, in that obedience to the Gospel which the sword cannot reach, which no violence can hinder. For this alone can restore us to the favour of God, and restore to us those advantages which we first abused, then lost, and now seek carefully (as Esau did the blessing) with tears. In a word, these helps which we would have, and cannot always have, we may yet always have in our remembrance and affection; but we must not so seek after them as to drive down all before us, and the Gospel itself, in our motion and adventure towards them, but fix our eye and desires upon that heaven which is presented to us in the way, and in those divine rules of life from which no power on earth can absolve and disengage us, and for the neglect of which no necessity can be brought in as an Apology; and thus bless God in all things, even in those which are gone from us, and cleave fast to that which is most essential and necessary to the end, which is out of reach and danger, and which the power of darkness itself cannot take away.  
Third; and now I am come to the foot of my account, and to this all that I have to say is but what I can but say (for this preface is swollen beyond that compass which my first thoughts drew out) and it is this, that as I was careful to press those doctrines which I conceived to be most necessary, so I did it without any affectation, unless it were of plainness and perspicuity, of which indeed I was most ambitious, as knowing that the Majesty of divine truths is best seen in the stole and gravity of a matron, and most times quite lost in the studied gaietry and light colours of a wanton. I could have wished for the happiness of Isidor the Philosopher, of whom it was said, that he spoke not words, but the very substance and essences of things, 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Damasc. in excerptis Photi God. CCXLII  that I might have displayed the glory and happiness which is always before true Piety, and pointed out to Piety as with a finger, showing how it works towards it, till they both meet and are made one in eternity. And this I did endeavour (though I come short of it) to draw our in so plain and lively a character, that he that runs might read it; that the sight of it might ravish the Beholder, and force him to a love of that which so visibly draws towards that end which hath no end, even the vision of that God which is blessed for evermore. We speak, saith S. Paul, the wisdom of God in a Mystery, the hidden wisdom, and the Gospel is the revelation of that Mystery, Rom. 16.25. and if it be revealed it is no longer hidden; if it be known, as far as it is known it is not a Mystery, and if it were yet a hidden Mystery it could not concern us, because that can have no influence upon our will which yields no light at all to our understanding, which is as a Counsellor to the will, and should convey the light unto it. The light is no more light to me then darkness itself, when 'tis put under a bushel; and Mysteries when they are hidden are to us as nothing. I know now no Mysteries in Divinity, for it is agreed on all hands, that whatsoever is necessary to the end, is perspicuous and naked to the understanding: I may say Mystical Divinity is an art of teaching nothing; of moving and standing still; of striving forward and winning no ground; an art of filling men with thin and empty speculations, in which they are lifted up aloft to strange sights and apparitions, as they say witches are (and as they themselves think) when they do but dream; sometimes it is made a vail to cover something which we would not have seen, and we call that the Mystical sense of Scripture which is none at all. For men are too ready to draw a vail again over that which is now made manifest, to obscure that which cannot be too plain, nor made plainer than it is. Quaerunt quod nusquam est, inveniunt tamen the seek, 
Pennae acumen dividitur in uo, in toto corpore servata unitate, credo propter mysterium. Isid. Orig. l. 6. c. 14.  for that which is not where to be found, and yet they find it out, but as he found Juno, who embraced a cloud; Whatsoever they see is a mystery, and yet they see it as Isidore found out a mystery, The Old and New Testament, in the nose and cleft of a pen.  
I know there be in Scripture, and frequently in the New Testament, many Metaphorical expressions, from Bread, from Fire and Water, from Sowing and Planting, 
Quint. l. 8. instit. c. 6.  from Generation Adoption, and the like, which were used not to make mysteries, but to open them, signandis rebus & sub oculos subjiciendis, to set a mark upon things, and to declare and unfold them to the very eye, that so they might enter with more light and ease into the mind, which (as the Jewish Rabbis were want to say) was to find out the lost pearl with a candle of an halfpenny, and with these common and familiar resemblances to dive into the Cistern of Truth, and draw it out. Christ who came down to teach us was the light of the World, and what he taught was as open as the Day to all but to those who loved darkness more than light and it will shine in its full strength to all that will look up upon it, to the end of the World. Nor could it be his will who came to save us, that his saving Truth should be shown by half and dark lights, or that Divines (who call themselves his Ministers) should be like those Philosophers who did Philosophiam ad syllabas vocare, 
Senec. Epist. LXXII.  (as Seneca complains) who drew Philosophy down to words and syllables, so that at last it was shut up and lost in phrases, and second notions, and terms of Art, which brought little improvement to the better part, and made men rather Talkative then Wise. For we may observe, that the same noisome and pestilent wind which so withered Philosophy, till it was shrunk up into a name, being nothing but a body of words, hath blown also upon Divinity, and blasted that which was ordained to be the very life of our souls; which was more pure and plain when men's lives were so, but is now sullied with much handling, & made much unlike itself, daubed over with glosses as with untempered mortar, wrought out into Questions, beat out into Distinctions, and is made an Art, which is the Wisdom of God to Salvation. The Schoolmen did feaze and draw it out, and then made it up in knots; The Postillers played with it, and made it well-neer ridiculous (and we have seen some such unseemly Jigs in our days) and there have been too many Theorical Divines, who have stretched beyond their line, beyond the understanding of their hearers, and beyond their own; wrought darkness out of light, made that obscure which was plain, that perplexed which was easy, have handled Metaphors as Chemists do metals, and extracted that out of them which Christ never put into them; made them less intelligible by pressing them so far, and by beating them out have made them nothing; more obscure than the thing which it should show, and yields us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a sea of words, but not a word of sense; and to be regenerate is something more than to be made good who were evil; and to be a new creature is something more (if we could tell what it were) then to be a just and righteous man; and we are born and made what we are against our will. And what hath followed this bold obtruding of our own thin and forced conceits upon the Church under the high commanding form of necessary truths? even that which hath been observed of philosophy; when men made wisdom the only aim and end of their studies, than philosophy was itself, in its prime and natural glory, being drawn up unto its proper end; but when they applied themselves to it only to fill up their time, or satisfy their ambition, or to delight their wits, than she lost her native complexion and strength, and degenerated into folly; then Epicurus raised a swarm of atoms, and Diogenes made him a tub, the Stoics brought in their decrees and paradoxes; then there were Mille familiarum nomina, so many Sects that it is not easy to draw them into a catalogue; and some there were who declared their different opinions, and disputed one against the other by outward signs alone, as by Weeping and Laughing; so we find it also in the Church of Christ, that Divinity never suffered so much as when it was made a matter of wit and ambition, and policy and faction became moderators and staters of questions. Then every man became an interpreter of Scripture, and every interpreter had need of another to interpret him: Then men taught the Law, as Moses received it, out of a thick cloud, and darkness was drawn over the face of life itself, and men received it as it was taught, and did understand them who did not understand themselves, received it as news out of a far country, and conceived of it either more or less than it was; received it in parcels and fragments, which hung like meteors in their fancy, or as indigested lumps in their minds, which soon broke out into sores and ulcers, and one was a Libertine, another an Anabaptist, another a Leveller; and some there were who did distinguish themselves by the motion and gesture, and some (which is strange) by the nakedness of their bodies; and thus mischief grew up and multiplied through the blindness or deceitfulness of reachers, and the folly and madness of the people; which evil had not certainly so far overrun the Church, if men would have kept themselves within their own limits, and not took upon them to be wiser than God; if the truth had been as plainly taught as it was first delivered, and not held out by men's ignorance or ambition, and set forth with words and phrases, and affected notions of our own; if all men would have contended for and rested in that faith alone which was once delivered to the Saints.  
And this I marked and avoided, and in the course of my ministry run from as far as a good will with my weakness could carry me; and as I struck at those errors which are most common, and did strive to set up in their place those truths which are most necessary, so I did endeavour to do it to the very eye, with all plainness and evidence, and as near as I could in the language of him who for us men and for our salvation did first publish them to the world, to which end and to which alone (next to the glory of God) these my rude and ill-polished papers are consecrate; and if they attain this in many, or few, or but one, I have a most ample recompense for my labour, and praise and dispraise shall be to me both alike; for the one cannot make these Sermons better, nor the other worse. I know others before me have raised themselves up to a higher pitch, and struck at error with more art, and brought more strength to the building up of the Truth; and I have seen it exalted, and Falshood led in triumph gloriously by those whom God and their industry hath more fitted to the work, and I have but offered myself up to it, as some succours, which come when the day and heat is over, who though they do not help, yet show their good will, and we know that even they who bring on the baggage do some service.  
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  Naz Orat. 20. 
The God of patience and Consolation grant that we may be like minded one towards another according to Christ Jesus, that we may with one mind and mouth glorify God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.  Rom. 15.5,6.  

A TABLE DIRECTING TO THE TEXTS OF SCRIPTURE Handled in the following SERMONS.  

Four Festival Sermons.  
On Christmas-Day. HEB. 2.17. Wherefore in all things it behoved him to be made like unto his brethren. page 1.  
On Good-Friday. ROM. 8.32. He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him give us all things? 23  
On Easter-Day. REV. 1.18. I am he that liveth, and was dead, and behold I live for evermore, Amen, and have the keys of Hell and of death. 45  
On Whitsunday. JOHN 16.13. Howbeit, when He the spirit of truth is come, he will lead you into all truth. 67   

Twenty six Sermons more.  
Serm. 1. JAM. 1. Ver. ult. Pure Religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the World. 1.  
Serm. 2. 1 SAM. 3.18. And Samuel told Eli every whit, and kept nothing from him. And He said, It is the Lord, let him do what seemeth him good. 21  
Serm. 3. COLOSS. 2.6. As you have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him. 45  
Serm. 4. JOHN 6.56. He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me and I in him. 67  
Serm. 5. EZEK. 33.11. As I live, saith the Lord, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked. Turn ye, Turn ye from your evil ways: For why will ye die oh House of Israel? 87  
Serm. 6. EZEK. 33.11. Turn ye, Turn ye, etc. 111  
Serm. 7. EZEK. 33.11.— From your evil ways, etc. 133  
Serm. 8. EZEK. 33.11.— From your evil ways, etc. 155  
Serm. 9 EZEK. 33.11.— Why will ye die, etc. 177  
Serm. 10. EZEK. 33.11.— Why will ye die, Oh house of Israel? 203  
Serm. 11. EZEK. 33.11.— Why will ye die, Oh house of Israel? 225  
Serm. 12. EZEK. 33.11.— Why will ye die, etc. 247  
Serm. 13. GAL. 4.39. But as then he that was born after the flesh persecuted him that was born after the Spirit, even so is it now. 271  
Serm. 14. MATTH. 24.42. Watch therefore, for you know not what hour your Lord will come. 293  
Serm. 15. MATTH. 24.42. The Lord will come you know not what hour, etc. 311  
Serm. 16. MATTH. 24.42. Watch therefore, etc. 333  
Serm. 17. GAL. 1.10. the last part of the ver. For do I now persuade men or God? or do I seek to please men? For if I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ. 357  
Serm. 18. A Preparation to the holy Communion. 1 COR. 11.25. This do ye as oft as you drink it, in remembrance of me. 391  
Serm. 19 1 THES. 4.11. And that you study to be quiet, and to do your own business, and to work with your own hands, as we have commanded you. 416  
Serm. 20. 1 THES. 4.11.— And to do your own business, and to work with your own hands, as we have commanded you. 437  
Serm. 21. MICAH 6. v. 6, 8. Wherewith shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before the high God? Shall I come before him with burnt-offerings? etc.— v. 8. He hath showed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God? 459  
Serm. 22. MICAH 6.8. He hath showed thee, O man, what is good, etc. 479  
Serm. 23. MICAH 6.8.— What doth the Lord require of thee, etc. 503  
Serm. 24. MICAH 6.8.— But to do justly, etc. 527  
Serm. 25. MICAH 6.8.— To love mercy, etc. 553  
Serm. 26. MICAH 6.8.— And to walk humbly with thy God. 577   

A Sermon Preached at the Funeral of Sir George Whitmore, Knight, PSAL. 119.19. I am a stranger in the earth, hid not thy commandments from me. 601    


 blazon or royal coat of arms of England and Wales HONI ●…T QVI MAL Y PENSE  
A SERMON Preached on Christmas-Day.  HEB. 2.17. 
Wherefore in all things, it behoved him to be made like unto his brethren—  
THis high Feast of the Nativity of our blessed Saviour is called by Saint chrysostom 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the great Metropolitan Feast; For as to the chief City the whole Country resort, Thither the tribes go up, saith David, even the tribes of the Lord, Psal. 122. So all the feast-days of the whole year, all the passages and periods of our Saviour's blessed oeconomy, of that great work of our Redemption; all the solemn commemorations of the blessed Saints and Martyrs meet and are concentred in the joy of this Feast: If we will draw them into a perfect Circle, we must set the foot of the Compass upon this Deus similis factus, God was made like unto man; but if we remove the Compass, and deny this Assimilation the Incarnation of Christ, there will be no room then for the glorious company of the Apostles; For the Noble Army of Martyrs, the Circumcision is cut off, the Epiphany disappears, our Easter is buried, and the Feast of the holy Ghosts Advent is past, and gone from us, as that mighty wind which brought it in. Blot out these two words, Puer natus, a Child is born, the Son of God made like unto us, and you have wiped the Saints all out of the Calendar.  
We will not now urge the solemn Celebration of it, that hath been done already by many, who have thought it a duty not only of the Closet, but the Church, and a fit subject for Public Devotion, and upon this account Antiquity looked upon it with joy and Gratitude, as upon a Day which the Lord had made, and Saint Austin commends this Anniversary Solemnity, as delivered to after-Ages either from the Apostles themselves, 
Vel ab ipsis Apostolis, vel plenariis conciliis instituta etc. Aug. p. 118.  or decreed by Counsels, and devoutly retained in all the Churches of the world. But we do not now urge it; for when power speaks, every mouth must be stopped, Logic hath no sinews, an argument no strength, Antiquity no Authority, Counsels may err, the Fathers were but children, all Churches must yield to one, and the first Age be taught by the last; speech is taken from the faithful Counsellors, and judgement from the Aged, 
Job 12,20.  and but yesterday that monster was discovered, which the Churches for so many Centuries of years heard not of, and so made much of it, and embraced it, which they must have run from, or abolished, if their eye had been as clear, and quick as theirs of aftertimes. I do not stand up against Power, I should then forget him, whose memory we so much desire to celebrate, who was the best teacher, and the greatest example of Obedience; what cannot be done, cannot oblige, and where the Church is shut up, every man's Chamber, every man's Breast may be a Temple, and every day a Holiday, and he may offer up in it the Sacrifice of praise and Thanksgiving to the blessed Son of God; who came and dwelled amongst us, and was made like unto us, which is the only End of the Celebration of this Feast: Christ is made like unto us, is as true, when every man tells himself so, and makes melody in his heart, as when ti's preached in the great Congregation; but it sounds better, and is heard further, and is the sweeter Music, when all the people say Amen; when with one heart, and one soul, and in one place they give glory to their Saviour, who that he might be so, factus est similis he was made like unto them.  
Wherefore in all things it behoved him to be made like unto his Brethren.  
My Text is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a principle in Divinity, and is laid down unto us in the form of a Modall proposition, which, as we are taught in our Logic, consists of two parts, the Dictum, and the Modus; 1. the proposition, Christ is made like unto us; 2. the modification, or qualification of it with an Oportuit, or Debuit, It behoved him so to be: In the Dictum or proposition our meditations are directed to Christ and his Brethren, and we consider, quid Christus, quid nos, what Christ is, and what we were. God he was from all eternity, in the fullness of time factus similis, made like unto us.  
Nos viles pulli, nati infoelicibus ovis.  
We miserable naked sinners; Enemies to God, at such a distance from him, so fare from the least participation of the Divine Nature, that we were fallen from the Integrity and first Honour of our own, facti similes made like indeed, but if a Prophet, and a king, if David draw our picture, similes jumentis quae pereunt, let our sorrow and shame interpret it like to the Beasts that perish, but now facti filii Dei by Christ's assimilation to us, made like unto God, exalted by his Humiliation, raised by his descent, magnified by his minoration, Candidati Angelorum, lifted up on high to a sacred emulation of an Angelical estate; with songs of joy and Triumph we remember it, and it is the joy of this Feast fratres Domini, the Brethren of Christ.  
Thus with a mutual aspect Christ's humility looks upon the exaltation of our Nature, and our exaltation looks back again upon Christ, and, as a well made picture looks upon him that looks upon it, so Christ drawn forth in the similitude of our flesh looks upon us, whilst we with joy and Gratitude have our eyes set upon him: They answer each other 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and are parallels. Christ made like unto men, and again, men made like unto him, so like, that they are his Brethren: Christ made like 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in all things will fill up the office of a Redeemer, and men made like unto God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in all things which may be required at the hands of those who are Redeemed; his obedience lifted him up to the cross, and ours must lift us after him, and be carried on by his to the End of the world; And as we find it in Relatives they are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 there is a kind of Convertency in these Terms, Christ and his Brethren, Christ like unto his Brethren, and these Brethren like unto Christ. Christ is ours, and we are Christ's, saith the Apostle, 1 Cor. 3. and Christ Gods. And in the last place, the modification, the Debuit, It behoved him, carries our thoughts to those two common Heads, or places, the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the Convenience, and the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Necessity of it, and these two in Civil Acts are one; for what becomes us to do, we must do, and 'tis necessary we should do it: what should be done, is done, and it is impossible it should be otherwise say the Civilians, because the law supposeth obedience, 
Impossibilitas juris  which is the Compliment and perfection of the law; and this Debuit looks equally on both, both on Christ, and his Brethren, if in all things it behoved Christ to be like unto his Brethren, which is the benefit, Heaven and Earth will conclude, men and Angels will infer Debemus, that it behoveth us to be made like unto Christ, which is the Duty.  
My Text then is divided equally between these two Terms Christ and his Brethren: That which our devotion must contemplate in Christ is, First, his Divine: 2. his Humane Nature: 3. the union of them both; for 1. we cannot but make a stand, and inquire quis ille? who he was who ought to do this; and in the 2. place inquire of his Humane nature; For we find him here flesh of our flesh and Bone of our Bone, Assimilatum made like unto us; what can we say more? Our Apostle tells us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in all things, and then will follow the union of them both expressed in this passive fieri in this his assimilation, and the Assumption of our Nature, which all fill us with admiration, but the last raiseth it yet higher (and should raise our love to follow him in his Obedience) quod debuit, that it behoved him that the dispensation of so wonderful, and Catholic a benefit must be Translated tanquam ex officio, as a matter of Duty. The end of all, is the end of all, Our salvation, the end of our Creation, the end of our Redemption, the end of this assimilation, and the last end of all, the glory of God, which sets an oportet upon Man as well as upon Christ, and then his Brethren and he will dwell together in unity: Only here is the difference, our obligation is the easiest, 'tis but this, to be bound and obliged with Christ, to set our hands to that bond, which he hath sealed with his Blood; no heavy Debet to be like unto him, and by his condescension so low to us, to raise ourselves nearer to him, by a holy and diligent imitation of his obedience, which will make up our last part, and serve for application.  
And in the first place, we ask with the Prophet, quis ille? who is he that cometh? who is he that must be made like unto us? what is done? and who did it? of so near a relation, that we can hardly abstract the one from the other; and if one eye be levelled on the fact, the other commonly is fixed on the hand that did it; Magnis negotiis ut magnis Comediis edecumati apponuntur actores; Great Burdens require equal strength to bear them, matters of moment are not for men of weak abilities and slight performance, nor every Actor for all parts; To lead Captivity Captive, to bring prisoners to Glory, to destroy Death, to shut up the gates and mouth of Hell, these are Magnalia, wonderful things, not within the sphere of common Activity. We see here, many sons there were to be brought unto Glory at the 10. v. but in the way there stood sin to Intercept us, the fear of Death to Enthrall us, and the Devil ready to devour us, and we, what were we? Rottenness our mother, and worms our Brethren, lay us in the balance, lighter than vanity, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 men fallen below the condition of men, lame and impotent, not able to move one step in these ways of Glory, living Dead men; quis novus Hercules? who will now stand up for us? who will be our Captain? we may well demand quis ille? who he is? Some Angel we may think, sent from Heaven, or some great Prophet; No: inquest is made in this Epistle, neither the Angels, nor Moses returned; The Angels, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in no wise, Glorious Creatures indeed they are, Celestial spirits, but yet Ministering spirits, in all purity serving the God of purity, saith Naz: not fit to intercede, but ready at his Beck, 
o Nazianz. Orat. 43.  with wings indeed, but not with Healing under them, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but second lights too weak to enlighten so great a Darkness; their light is their Obedience, and their fairest Elogium, Ye Angels, that do his will; they were but finite Agents and so not able to make good an infinite loss, they are in their own Nature mutable, and so not fit agents to settle them who were more mutable, more subject to change than they; not able to change our vile bodies, much less able to change our souls, which are as immortal as they, but are lodged in a Tabernacle of Flesh, which will fall of itself, and cannot be raised again, but by his power, whom the Angel's worship; In prison we were, and Cui Angelorum? written on the door; miserable Captives, so deplorably lost, that the whole Hierarchy of Angels could not help us.  
And if not the Angels, not Moses sure, though he were nearest to God, and saw as much of his Majesty as Mortality was able to bear; the Apostle tells us, he was Faithful in his House 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as a servant, but Christ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as a son; smite he did the Egyptians, 
Heb. 3.5.  and led the people like sheep through the wilderness, but he who was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Captain of our salvation as he is styled at the 10. v. was to cope with one more terrible than Pharaoh and all his Host, to put a Hook into the Nostrils of that great Leviathan, to lead not the people alone, but Moses himself through darkness and death itself, able to uphold and settle an Angel in his Glorious estate, and to raise Moses from the dead. Not Moses then, but one greater than Moses'; not the Angels, but one whom the Angel's worship, who could command a whole Legion of them; or if a Prophet, the great Prophet which was to come; if an Angel, the Angel of the Covenant,  hic Deus est; Ask the Devils themselves, and when he lived, they roared it out. Ask the Centurion and they that watched him at his Death, and they speak it with Fear and Trembling: Truly this was the Son of God.  
Christ then our Captain is the Son of God; but God hath divers sons, some by Adoption, and then he is made so; some by Nuncupation, and then he is but called so; and some by Creation, and then he is created so; for they who rob and divest him of his Essence, yet will yield him his Title, and though they deny him to be God, yet will call him his Son. We must follow then the Philosopher's Method in his description of moral happiness, proceed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by way of Negation, and to establish him in his right of filiation tell you, he is not a Son, not Adoptivus filius his, Adopted son, who by some great merit of his could so dignify himself, as to deserve that Title, which was the Dream, or rather Invention of Photinus. 
— Imitatur adoptio prolem.   
Adoption is but a supply, a grafting of a strange Branch into another stock, but he whose name is the Branch grows up of himself, of the same stock and root, Deus de Deo, God of God, very God of very God, made manifest in the flesh, 2. not Nuncupativus, his son by Nuncupation, his Nominal son, such a one as Sabellius, and the Patro-passiani fancied, as if the Father had been assimilated, and so called the son, impiously making the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost not three persons but three names: Lastly, not filius Creatus his Created Son, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a mere Creature, and of a distira●t Essence from his Father as the more riged Arians, nor the most excellent Creature 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in substance like unto the Father, but not consubstantial with him, as the more moderate, whom the Fathers called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, half Arians conceived; To these Heretics we reply non est Filius Dei, he is not thus the son of God; and as Aristotle tells us, that his Moral happiness is the chiefest good, but not that good, which the voluptuary fancieth, the Epicures good; nor that which ambition flies to, the Politicians good; nor that, which the contemplative man abstracteth, an universal Notion and Idea of Good; so may the Christian by the same Method consider his Saviour his chiefest bliss and happiness, and by way of Negation draw him out of these fogs and mists, where the wanton and unsanctified wits of men have placed him, and bring him into the bosom of his Father, and fall down and worship God and man Christ Jesus. Behold a voice from Heaven spoke it, This is my beloved son; we may suspect that voice, when Photinus is the Echo, an Angel from Heaven said vocabitur, he shall be called the son of the most High. Our Faith starts back and will not receive it, if Sabellius make the Gloss; our Saviour himself speaks it, Ego & pater unum sumus, I and the Father am one. The truth itself will be corrupted, if Arius be the Commentator, to these we say he is not thus the Son of God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, 
Naz. Or. 39 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  to contract the personality with Sabellius, or to divide the Deity with Arius are blasphemies in themselves Diametritrically opposed, but equally to the truth. The Captain of our salvation is the son of God, begotten, not made, the brightness of his Father, streaming from him as light from light; his Image, not according to his humane Nature, but according to his divine 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the Image and Character not of any qualities in God, but of his person, the true stamp of his substance, begotten as brightness from the light, as the Character from the Type, as the word from the mind, which yet do not fully declare him; quis enarrabit? saith the prophet, who shall declare his generation? And who more fit to teach us, than he who came out of the bosom of God? who more fit to give us laws, than God himself? what tongue of men or Angels can so well express his will, as the word which was made flesh, and pitched his tent, dwelled amongst us, opened a School as it were, to teach all that would learn the way unto Happiness? or what expectient could Wisdom have found out so apt and powerful to draw our Love out of these labyrinths and mazes wherein it wanders and divides itself, to take it from these painted and false Glories, and bring it back and fix it on that which is eternal, as this, to bow the Heavens and come down, and in our flesh, and as man to instruct men, to gain them in their own likeness, to tell them he was not that only, which they saw, but of the same essence with his Father, which they could not see? so that here is Majesty and Humility joined, and united in one to draw them out of darkness, into that great light, which shall discover and lay open unto them, the deformity, the ugliness, the deceitfulness of those flattering objects, in which our thoughts, desires, and endeavours met as in their centre. And if this infinite and unconceivable love of God in manifesting himself in our flesh, do not draw and oblige us, if these bonds of love will not hold and fetter us to a regular obedience, which must begin and perfect our peace, than we are passed the reach of any Argument which men or Angels can bring, and no chains can hold us, but those of Everlasting Darkness.  
And indeed his eternal Generation by itself would but little avail us, for Majesty is no medicine for our Malady, we who are children of the Time, have need of a Captain which must be born in Time; we were sick of an Eritis sicut Dii, a bold and foolish ambition and affectation to be Gods: and this disease became Epidemical, we all would be Independent, be our own Lawgivers, our own God; Pride threw us down, and Nothing but Humility, the exinanition of the Son of God could raise us: And we may observe in the 7th. of Esay, God bids Ahaz ask a sign not only è coelo, from Heaven, but è terra, from the earth beneath, è profundis, from the lowest depth, quia utrumque copulavit (it is S. Basils' note upon that place) because at the Union of the Godhead with our Nature, there was a near Conjunction with Heaven and Earth. A sign from Heaven is a great Grace, but we would have a sign from earth too; and here we have it; Factus similis, he was made like unto his Brethren, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a God amongst Men, a God on the Earth is a sign indeed.  
And therefore in the next place as he is Deus de patre, God of his Father, so he is Homo de matre, Man of his Mother; the Son of God and the Son of Mary. Will you have a sign? here it is, a sign to be adored, and a sign to be wondered at, and a sign to be spoken against, saith old Simeon, a sign è profundis, we may say from the deep abyss of his mercy. Ecce expectat nasci sua membra quae fecit, Behold the Heavens are the work of his fingers, yet he suffered himself to be fashioned in the womb of a Virgin, took of Man what he abounds with, to be Born, and Dye, digested into members, knit together with sinews, built up with bones, covered with our flesh, enveloped with skin, raised up to the perfect similitude, nay drawn down to the low condition of his Creature; he would be any thing but sin, to redeem him from Sin, and save him, and descend so low as the Grave, and as Hell itself, to raise him to a capability, and hope of Heaven and Immortality. Mira 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a wonderful condescension, a wonderful fall from his Throne to the Womb, from his dwelling place on high to dwell in the Flesh, from his Angels Gloria in Excelsis, Glory be to God on high, to the Shepherds, vidimus in praesepi, we have seen him in the Cratch, from the Seraphins 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Holy, Holy, Holy, to the Jews bitter Sarcasme, Come down from the Cross, from riding on the Cherubin to the hanging on the Tet, Mirabilis descensus, this was a wonderful descent, nor could we think God could do it, but that we know, he can do more than we can think. Where was that hand that made and fashioned us, that meated the Heavens and measured out the Waters, that weighed the Mountains in scales? where was that voice which thundered from Heaven, that mighty voice which broke the Cedars of Libanus? where was that God that was from everlasting? Do we not stand at gaze, and put on wonder? Do we not tremble to say it? and yet to say it, as we should, is Salvation. Latuit in Humilitate majestas, That Majesty lay hid in Humility, that Power was in Frailty; That Hand in the Crotch, and in the Clouts, that Voice in an Infant not able to speak, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, saith Naz. 
Nazianz. orat. 38.  The God of Spirits was incarnate, he that was invisible was seen, he that could not be touched, handled; we have seen with our eyes, we have heard him, our hands have handled him, saith S. John; He that was from everlasting had a beginning; he that was the Son of God Factus similis, made the Son of Man like unto his Brethren.  
We cannot put on too much caution and reverence when we speak of God; De Deo vel seriò loqui periculosum, ne fortè Deo indigna loquamur. Our tongue will be as the pen of a ready writer, and run too fast, if fear do not hold it, and it is very dangerous to speak of that Majesty which is at such an infinite distance from us, that it is far safer to adore, than discourse of it; the Christian world hath been too daring and bold with him, to speak of him what they please, and then to teach him to speak, to make a language of their own, and say it is his; although the words be such, as were never heard from Heaven, nor can be found in the Book of the Generation of Jesus Christ; If we be his Disciples, when we speak to him, or of him, let us use his own words, for than he will better understand us, and we shall better understand one another; for when we set up a Mint of our own, and take to ourselves the royalty of coinage, whatsoever we work out, we send abroad as current, though the character and stamp present more of our own Image, than his; when we will be over-witty, commonly we are over-seen; God is made like unto Men: if the words were not his, we should not dare to speak them; but this is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the submission and minoration of Christ, and if he will descend so low, if he will take our likeness, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, he takes it in good part, 
Naz. 16. ●b.  and is well pleased to learn these words from us, because they are his own: Like a man, a man of sorrows, a worm and no man, a despised, rejected man, he will have us call him so, he hath put it into our Creed, and counts it no disparagement. He set a time for it, and when the Appointed time came, he was made like unto us, and all Generations may speak it to his glory, to the end of the world. Before he appeared darkly wrapped up in Types, veiled in Dreams, beheld in Visions, that he appears in the likeness of our Flesh, that he appears, and speaks, and suffers in our Flesh, is the high prerogative of the Gospel. And here he publisheth himself in every way of representation, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in our Image, or likeness, in the form of a servant, our very picture, a living picture, a picture drawn out to life indeed, such a picture, as one man is of another, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by way of Comparison; for how hath he spread and dilated himself by a world of comparisons? He is a Shepherd to guide and feed us, a Captain to lead us, a Prophet to teach us, he is a Priest, and he is the Sacrifice for us, he is Bread to strengthen us; he is a vine to refresh us; he is a Lamb, that we may be meek, he is a Lion that we may be valiant, he is a Worm, that we may be patiented; he is a Door, to let us in; and the way through which we pass into life; he is any thing, that will make us like him; sin, and error, and the Devil hath not appeared in more shapes to deceive and destroy us, than Christ hath to save us. Lastly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by his exemplary virtues, and those raised to such a high pitch of perfection, that neither the cursed Heretics, nor the miscreant Turk, nor the Devil himself could reach, and blemish it; never was righteousness in his vertical point, but in him, where it cast not the least shadow for envy or detraction to walk in, for amongst all the Heresies the Church was to cope withal, we read of none that called his piety into question; and all this propter nos for our sakes; that in his Meekness we may shut up our Anger, in his Humility abate our Pride, in his Patience still and charm our Frowardness, in his Bounty spend ourselves, in his Compassion and Bowels melt our stony hearts, and in his perfect Obedience beat down our Rebellion: not in the Cloud, or in the fiery Pillar, not in Darkness and Tempest, not in those ways of his, which are as hard to find out, as the passage of an arrow in the air, or a ship in the sea, but in tegmine carnis, as Arnobius speaks, under no other Covert, than that of our Flesh, so like us, that we may take a pattern by him.  
This indeed may seem an indignity to God, and in all ages there have been found some, who have thought so; not only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Heathen, who in Tatianus in plain terms tell the Christians they did 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 betray too great a folly in believing it, but even Christians themselves and children of the Church, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Naz: calls them, ill lovers of Christ, who did rob him with a compliment, and to uphold his honour, did divest him of his Deity; and whilst with great show of piety and reverence, they stood up to remove from God the Nature, they unadvisedly put upon him the weakness of man, drew him out to our distempers and sick constitution, as if God were sicut homo as man, like unto us in our worst complexion, who are commonly very tender and dainty what likeness we take, and affect that similitude alone, which presents us greater, and fairer than we are; For our pictures present not us, but a better face, and a more exact proportion, and with it, the best part of our wardrobe; we are but grasshoppers, but would come forth and be seen taller than we are by the head and shoulders; in the largeness and height of an Anakim. This opinion we have of ourselves, and therefore are too ready to persuade ourselves, that God is of our mind; and, that God will descend so low, or take the likeness of a mortal; though he tell us so himself, yet we will not believe it, which is to measure out the immense goodness and wisdom of God, by our Digite and Scantling, by the imaginary line of a wanton and sick fancy, to bound and limit his determinate will, to teach God, and put our own shapes upon him, to confine him to a Thought, and then Christ hath two Persons, or but one Nature, a Body, and not a Body, is a God alone, or a Man alone, the whole body of Religion and our Christian Faith, must shiver and fly to pieces.  
Nos autem non sic: but we have not so learned Christ; not learned to abuse and violate his great love, and call it good manners, and then urge our fears, and unprescribed and groundless jealousies; 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉? shall his honour be the less because he hath laid it down for our sakes? 
Naz. ib.  shall he lose in his esteem because he fell so low for our advancement? or can we be afraid of that Humility, which purchased us glory, and returned in triumph with the keys of Hell, and of Death? He made himself a Shepherd, and laid down his life for his Sheep, and shall we make that an argument, that he is not a King? He clothed himself with our Flesh, he lights a Candle, he sweeps the House, descends to low Offices for our sake, so far from being ashamed of our Nature, that he made haste to assume it, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉? and dost thou impute this to God? No: to us his Humility is as full of wonder, as his Majesty; Non erubescimus de Christo, we are not ashamed of the man Christ, expecting the leisure of nine month's Travel, passing through and enduring the loathsome Contumelies of our Nature, born in a Stable, cradled in a Cratch, wrapped up in Clouts, poor and despised, non de crucifixo Christo, not of our crucified Lord hanging on the Cross, but wonder heighteneth our joy, and joy raiseth our wonder, and we cry out with S. Austin, Oh prodigia! oh miracula! Oh prodigy, oh miracle of Mercy! 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉! oh the strangeness of this New Birth! with the Wise-wen, we open our Treasuries, and present him gifts, and worship him as a King, though we find him in a manger.  
And this is signum è terra, a sign from the depth, from the low condition of our Flesh; factus similis, saith the Apostle, 
Psal. 40.  made like unto his Brethren; corpus aptasti mihi, saith he himself in the Psalm, a Body hast thou prepared me, so like us, that the Devil himself as quicksighted as Martion or Manes took him for no other, and was entrapped 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with the outward garment and veil of his flesh, and venturing upon him as man found him a God, 
Naz. Or. 39  and striking at the First Adam was overcome with the Second, beat down and conquered with that blow which he leveled. But as he hath taken our Flesh, must he take our Soul too? may not his Divinity as Apollinarius fancied, supply the place of our better part? shall we not free him from those passions and affections, which when they move and are hot within us, our common Apology is, Humanum est, that we are but men? No: to S. Hilaries Corporatio we must add the Greeks 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, and if S. Hilaries incorporating of Christ will not reach home, their inhumanition will 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 draw them together, and unites them both, both body and soul; he came to save both, and both he took, to free the body from Corruption, and the soul from Sin, to refine our Dross into Silver, and our Silver into pure Gold, to raise our Bodies to the Immortality of our Souls, and our Souls to the purity of the Angels, perfect God and perfect Man, of a reasonable Soul, and humane Flesh subsisting.  
And now being made up of the same Mould and Temper, having taken from man what makes and constitutes man, being the same wax as it were, why may he not receive the same impressions of Love and Joy, Grief and Fear, Anger and Compassion, affectus sensualitatis, even those affections which are seated in the sensitive part? Behold him in the Temple with a Scourge in his Hands, & you will say he was angry: Go with him to Lazarus his Grave, and you shall see his Sorrow dropping from his eyes: Mark his eye upon Jerusalem, and you shall see the very bowels of Compassion. Fellow him to Gethsemane, and the Evanglist will tell you, he began to be grievously troubled. Ecce tota haec Trinitas in Domino, saith Tertull. 
Tert. de Anim. c. 1.  Behold here is this whole Trinity in our Lord; 1. Rationale, the Rational part; for he teacheth what he learned, disputes with the Pharisees, and instructeth the people in those ways which reason commends as the best and readiest to lead them to the End. 2. Indignativum, the Irascible power which breathes itself forth in woes and bitter Invectives against the Scribes and Pharisees. 3. Concupiscentivum, the Concupiscible Appetite; for he desires, he earnestly desires to eat the Passeover with his Disciples: We may be bold to say, and it is Gratitude, and not Blasphemy to say it; angry he was, and joy he did, and breath forth his desires, and grieve, and fear, similis 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 like in all things, but with this huge difference; In all these no ataxy or disorder, not the least stoop nor declination from reason; no storm in his Anger, no frenzy in his joy, no woman in his Tears, no wanton in his Love, no coward in his Fear, like unto us in passion, but not bowed or misled by passion like unto us. In us they are as so many several winds driving us to several points; and almost at the same time, our Fear hath a relish of Hope, and our Hope is allayed with some Fear; our desires contradict themselves; we would and we would not, and we know not what we would have; our sorrow will ebb out into Anger, our Anger flows uncertainly, sometimes it swells into Joy if it be not checked, and if it be, and we miss our end, it frets, and wastes, and consumes itself, and is near lost in that flood of sorrow which it brought in; nunquam sumus singuli, we are never long the same men, but one passion or another rises in us, & troubles us a while, and so makes way for another, such a perplexed middle, such a lump of contradictions is man. Thus it is in us; but in him they are strait and even lines drawn to their right centre: his anger on Sin, his love on Piety, his joy on the great Work he had to do, his Fear was his Jealousy lest we should fall from him; when he grieved it was that others did not so; when he seemed most moved, in better temper than we are when we pray. All our qualities he had, which were indetectabiles, as the Schools speak, which employed no defect of Grace, nor detracted from his all-sufficient satisfactory righteousness, poenam sine culpa, those affections which might make him sensible of Smart, but not obnoxious to Sin, and in him they were not properly passions, 
Euseb. Episc. Thessaly. apud Phot. Biblioth. cod. CLXII.  saith Eusebius Bishop of Thessalonica, but rather 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 natural operations, which did show him to all the world, as it were, with an Ecce, Behold the man, and thus he condemned sin in the flesh, Rom. v. 3. that is in those punishments which his flesh endured; he that tells us he was like unto us in all things, brings in his exception, at the fourth chap. v. 3. yet without sin, for his miraculous conception by the holy Ghost was a sure and invincible Antidote against that poison of the Serpent, and so presented him an innocent and spotless Lamb fit for a Sacrifice.  
We have now filled up S. Paul's 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, and found our Captain God and Man Christ Jesus like unto us in all things; we have beheld him in intimis naturae, in the very bowels, as it were, and entrails of our nature, nay in sordibus naturae, in the vileness of our Nature; searching and purging the whole Circle and compass of it, and working out our corruption from the very root; we have considered him in that height, which no mortal eye can reach, in his Divine nature, and we have looked upon him, where he might be seen, and heard, and felt in his Humane nature; we must now with a reverend, and fearful hand but touch at the passive sieri, which points out to the union of both the Natures in one Person, the Apostle tells us, Debuit fieri similis, That it behoved him to be made like unto his brethren.  
And to the apprehension of this union, as to the knowledge of God, we are led by weak and faint representations drawn from sensible things, and we are led by negations, the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the quomodo, is best answered by non hoc modo, not after this manner; Factus est, he was made like unto us, 'tis true, but not so as flesh and Blood may imagine, or a wanton and busy wit conceive; not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Basil, not by any mutation of his divine essence, 
Basil de Hum. Christi Gen.  sine periculo status sui saith Tertull. without any danger of the least alteration of his state, his glory did not take from him the form of a servant, nor did this Assimilation lessen or alter him in that, by which he was equal to his Father, nor did the mystery of godliness bring any detriment to the Deity. G. Nyssen calls him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, and Tertullian, Deum carne mixtum in his Apology, (and Austin, 
Greg. Nyssen. Cath. or. c. 27.  and Cyprian, and Irenaeus use the same phrase) a God mixed with our nature, but not so as a drop of water cast into a vessel of wine, and turned into that substance, in which it is lost, as Eutyches fancied, but as the soul and body though two distinct Natures grow into one man, so did the Godhead assume the manhood without confusion of the Nature, or distinction of the persons; united as the Sun and the light, saith Justin Martyr, as a graft to a plant say others, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Basil: as in a fiery sword, there are two distinct Natures, the fire, and the sword; two distinct acts, to cut, and to burn; and two distinct effects, cutting and Burning; from whence ariseth one common effect, to cut burning, and to burn cutting; all which with all the representations which the wit of man can find out, cannot express it, but leave us in our gaze and wonder, whilst the manner of it is hid from our eyes, and removed further out of sight, then when we first looked after it. Those beasts which came too near to this mountain, this high mystery, were strucken through with a Dart, and staggered in the very attempt, and left to walk uncertainly in that mist and darkness, which their too daring curiosity had cast 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 etc. saith Nazianzen, 
Naz. orat. 26.  hot and busy wits they were; Arius 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a subtle sophister; Nestorius of a quick wit and voluble tongue; Apollinarius, the stoutest Champion the Church had against Arius, in comparison of whom some thought the great Athanasius to be but a child in understanding (not to mention Cer inthus, Valentinus, Eutiches) these pressing too forward upon this great mystery, were struck blind at the door, and running contrary ways, met all in this, that they ran the hazard of their own souls, and of that which should be as dear to them, the peace of the Church. Be not then too inquisitive to find out the manner of this union, for the holy Father seals up thy lips, that thou mayst not once think of Ask the question, 
Just. Mart.  and tells thee 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, that thou art not like to meet with an answer; and what greater folly can there be then to attempt to do that, which cannot be done? or to search for that, which is past finding out? or to be ever a beginning, and never make an end? Search the scriptures, for they are they that testify of him, testify that he was God blessed for evermore; that, that word which was Godw, as also made flesh, that he was the Son of God and the Son of man, the manner how the two Natures are united is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, 
Basil. ib.  unsearchable, unfoordable, and the knowledge of it, if our narrow understandings could receive it, would not add one hair to our stature, and growth in Grace; that he is God and man, that the two Natures are united in one person, who is thy Saviour and mediator, is enough for thee to know, and to raise thy nature up to him. Take the words as they lie, in their Native purity and simplicity, and not as they are hammered and beat out, and stamped by every hand, by those who will be Fathers, not Interpreters of Scripture, and beget what sense they please, and present it not as their own, but as a child of God. Then Lo, here is Christ, and there is Christ, this is Christ, and that is Christ, thou shalt see many images and characters of him, but not one that is like him, an imperfect Christ, a half Christ, a created Christ, a fancied Christ, a Christ that is not the Son of God, and a Christ that is not the Son of Man; and thus be rolled up and down in uncertainties, and left to the poor and miserable comfort of Conjecture, in that, which so far as it concerns us, is so plain and easy to be known. Do thoughts arise in thy heart? do doubts and difficulties beset thee? 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, saith Justin Martyr, thy Faith is the solution, and will soon quit thee of them, and cast them by; thy Faith not assumed, or insinuated into thee, or brought in, as thy vices may be, by thy education, but raised upon a holy hill, a sure foundation, the plain and express Word of God, and upheld and strengthened by the Spirit. Christian, dost thou believe? Thou hast then seen thy God in the Flesh, from Eternity, yet born; Invisible, yet seen; Immense, and circumscribed; Immortal, yet dying; the Lord of life, and Crucified; God and man Christ Jesus. Amaze not thyself with an inordinate fear of undervaluing thy Saviour; wrong not his love, and call it thy Reverence; why should thoughts arise in thy Heart? his power is not the less, because his mercy is great, nor doth his infinite love shadow or detract from his Majesty; for see, He counts it no disparagement to be seen in our flesh, nor to be at any loss, by being thus like us; our Apostle tells us, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, there was a Decorum in it, and it behoved him to be like unto his Brethren.  
Debuit; It behoved him.  
That Christ was made like unto us, is the joy of this Feast, but that he ought to be, is the wonder and ecstasy of our joy; that he would descend is mercy, but that he must is our astonishment: Oportet and Debet are binding terms and words of Duty. Had our Apostle said, It behoved us that he should be made like unto us, it had found an easy belief, the debuit had been placed in loco suo, in its proper place, on a sweeting brow, on dust and putrefaction, on the face of a captive; All will say it Behoved us much; but to put a Debet upon the Son of God, to make it a Decorum, a beseeming thing for him to become Flesh, to be made like unto us; to set a Ruby in Clay, a Diamond in Brass, a Chrysolet in base Metal, and say, it is placed well there, to worry the Lambs for the Wolf, to take the Master by the throat for the Debt of a Prodigal, and with an Oportet to say it should be so; to give a gift, and call it a Debt, is not out usual language on earth: on Earth it is not, but in Heaven it is the proper Dialect, fixed up in Capital letters on the Mercy Seat, the joy of this Feast, the Angel's Anthem, Salvator Natus, a Saviour is born, and if he will be a Saviour, an Undertaker, a Surety, such is the Nature of Fidejussion and Suretyship, debet, he must, it behoveth him, as deeply engaged as the party, whose surety he is.  
And let us look on the aptness of the means, and we shall soon find that this Foolishness of God (as the Apostle calls it) is wiser than men, and this weakness of God is stronger than men, 
1 Cor. 1.25.  & that the oportet is right set. For medio existente conjunguntur extrema, if you will have extremes to meet, you must have a middle line to draw them together, and behold here they meet, and are made unum, one, 
Ephes. 2.14.  saith the Apostle, the proprieties of either Nature being entire, and yet meeting and concentring themselves, as it were, in one person; Majesty puts on Humility; Power, Infirmity; Eternity, Mortality; by the one he dies for us, by the other he riseth again; by the one he suffers as Man, by the other he conquers as God; in them both he perfects and consummates the great work of our redemption.  
And this Debuit reacheth home to each part of my Text, to Christ as God. The same hand that made the vessel, when it was broken, and so broken, that there was not one sherd left to fetch water at any pit, to repair and set it together again, that it may receive and contain the water of life, ut qui fecit nos reficeret, that our Creation and Salvation should be wrought by the same hand, and turned about upon the same wheel.  
Next we may set the debuit upon his person, and he is media persona a middle person, and the office will best fit him, even the office of a Mediator; and then, as he is the Son of God, who is the Image of the Father, and most proper it may seem to him to repair that Image, which was defaced, and well near lost in us. For we had not only blemished this Image, but set the Devil's face and superscription upon God's coin; for Righteousness there was Sin; for Purity, Pollution; for Beauty, Deformity; for Rectitude, Perverseness; for the Man, a Beast; scarce any thing left by which he might know us, venit filius ut iterum signet, the Son comes, and with his blood revives again the first character, marks us with his own signature, imprints the Graces of God upon us, makes us current money, and that his Father may know us, and not cast us off for refuse silver, shows him his face.  
Lastly, it reacheth the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the assimilation itself, and lays hold on that too; made like he was, and debuit, he ought to be so, to satisfy in the same nature which had offended, carnem gestare propter meam carnem, to take flesh for my flesh, and a soul for my soul, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, to purge and refine me in my own, to wash and cleanse the corruption of my flesh in the immense Ocean of his Divinity, and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in all things to be made like unto his Brethren. Debuit looks on all his Godhead, on his Person, on his Assimilation. God, no Man or Angel; The second person in Trinity, not the Father, or the holy Spirit; made like unto his Brethren; his bare naked Divinity, though it might have saved us, yet it was not so fit, and at too great a distance for us. Debuit slumbers every storm, answers every doubt, scatters our fears, removes our jealousies, and builds us up in our most holy faith; Though he be God, though he be the wisdom of God, though he be the Son of God, yet debuit he ought to be made like unto us to restore his Creature, to exalt his Nature, and in our own shape and likeness, in our own flesh, to pay down the price of our Redemption.  
So then debuit fieri, here is an aptness, and conveniency, but debet he ought, vox ista importat necessitatem, it behoved him, implies also a kind of necessity. That God could be made like mortal man is a strange Contemplation, but that he would is a rise and exaltation of that; but debuit, that he ought, superexalteth that, and sets it at a higher pitch, but that he must be so, that necessity in a manner brings him down, were not his love as infinite as his power, would stagger and amaze the strongest faith; who would believe such a report? But he speaks it himself, and it was the fire of his love that kindled in him, and then he spoke it with his tongue, oportet, he must die, and if die, be born; not only is, but would not would; but aught; not aught, but of necessity must be made like unto his Brethren. I say, a strange contemplation it is, for there need no such forcible tye, no such chain of necessity to hold him, libere egit, what he did he did freely; nothing more free, and voluntary, more spontaneous than this his Assimilation; for as if he had slacked his pace, and delayed his Father's expectation, and not come at the appointed period of time, he suddenly cries, Lo, I come, in the volume of thy book it is written of me, that I should do thy will, oh God, Psal. 40.7.8. vers. he calls it his desire, and he had it written in his heart; 'tis true, libere fecit, this condescension, this his assimilation was free, and voluntary, with more cheerfulness, and earnestness undertaken by him, then 'tis received now by us (it is our shame and sin, that we dare not compare them; that he should be so willing to be like us, and we should be so unwilling to be like him) but if we look back upon the precontract which passed between his Father and him, we shall then see a Debuit, a kind of necessity laid upon him, our Saviour himself speaks it to his Blessed mother, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, 
Luke 2.49.  I must go about my Father's business; we may measure his love by the Decree, that is, we cannot measure it, for the decree is eternal; before the foundation of the world was laid was this foundation laid an everlasting foundation to lay Gold and Silver upon, all the rich & precious Promises of the Gospel, to lay our obedience and conformity to him, upon; and upon them both, upon his love, and our obedience raise ourselves up to that eternity, which he hath purchased and promised to all his Brethren that are made like unto him. Infinite love, eternal love, that which the eye of Flesh may count a dishonour, was his joy, his perfection, his love, which put a Debuit upon him, a necessity, and brought him after a manner, under the strict and peremptory Terms of an obligation, under a necessity of being borne, a Necessity of obedience, a Necessity of dying; Debuit taketh in all and presenteth them to our Admiration, our joy, our love, our obedience, and Gratitude; 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 every way, and in all things it behoved him to be made like unto his Brethren.  

The application.  We have now run the full compass of the Text, and we find our Saviour in every point of it similem 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 like in all things; and now to apply it; If Christ be like unto us, than we also ought to be like unto him, and aught to have our Assimilation, our Nativity, by the way of Analogy and by the rules of proportion, answerable to his. For to this end was he made like unto us, you will say, That he may save us; nay, but that he may present us to his Father by the virtue of his assimilation made like unto him; for without this he cannot save us. Behold here am I, and the Children which thou hast given me; Holy as I am holy, Just as I am just, Humble as I was humble; A man conformable to Christ is the glory of this Feast. Father, I will that they whom thou hast given me (and he gives him none, but those who are like him) may be, where I am: Heaven hath received him, and it will receive none but those, who are like him, not those that name him, not those who set his name to their fraud, to their malice, to their perjury, to their Oppression; not those many Antichrists, whose whole life is a contradiction to him: All that he requires at our hands, all our Gratitude, all our duty is drawn together, and consists in this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, to be like unto him. To be like unto him? why, who would not be like unto him? who would not be drawn after his similitude? Like him we all would be in his Glory, in his Transfiguration on mount Tabor; oh by all means build us here a Tabernacle; but like him in the cratch, like him in the wilderness, like him in his daily converse with men, like him in the High priests Hall, like him in the Garden, like him on the Cross, here we start back and are afraid of his countenance: In humility, in hunger, in sweat, in colours of Blood, few there be that would be thus drawn: But, if we will be his Brethren, this is the copy we must take out, these be our postures, these our Colours; bathed in his Blood, 'tis true, but withal bathed in the waters of Affliction, bathed in our own tears, and bathed in our own Blood; we meet and cope with the Devil in this our wilderness; we walk honestly, as in the day; in that day, which he hath made. We have our Agony in our Contrition; and in our Regeneration we hang upon the Cross; There our lusts and affections are fastened as it were with nails, their strength taken from them, that they cannot move in any opposition to Christ, but our anger turns from our brother who is like him, and is levelled on sin, which is most unlike him; our love shuts itself to the world, and opens itself to receive him; The hardship we undergo, brings in our fellowship with him; our suffering with him doth assimilate us, and in a manner Deify us; our following him in all his ways draws us as near to him, as Flesh and Blood can approach; and our joy, our greatest triumph is in this our Assimilation, and thus we come forth like unto him.  
And in the next place, as he was factus made like unto us, so are we facti similes made like unto him; we are not borne so, we are not so by chance, we cannot think ourselves, we cannot talk ourselves into his likeness, nor will he imprint it in us whilst we sleep, or do worse; this picture, this Resemblance is not drawn out with a thought, or a word. How many be there who take his name, yet are not like unto him, because they will not be made so? Christians they are sine sanguine & sudore, without blood or sweat, drawn out not by an obedient will, but a flattering fancy; they struggle not with Temptation, for they love it, they fight not against their Flesh, but nourish, and cherish it, make it their labour and ambition to please it; they have no fear, no Trembling, no Agony, no Cross, nay they beat their fellow servants and persecute them, because they are like him; crucify him in his members every day, and yet present themselves to the world as his children, as the very pictures of our Saviour, and so soon like him, that they will never be made so. When we see men fast and pray, not that they have done evil, but that they may do more, (the Pharisees did so) when we see men bowing before him, when they are ready to lift up their heel against him, when we hear their Hosannas to day, and their Crucifyes to morrow (the Jews did so) when we see men follow him as his Disciples, and call him their Master, and then sell him for some pieces of silver, deliver him to their Lusts, their Ambition, their Covetousness, (Judas did so, the son of perdition, and so nothing like unto a Saviour) when we see men wash their hands as if they were clear of all guilt, and yet in a Tumult leave Christ and his Religion to be tom in pieces, and trod under feet, and to make their peace, care not what becomes of him; (Pilate did so) when we see men tempting Christ, to turn stones into bread, to do that by miracle, for which he hath fitted its ordinary proper means; (the Devil did so) when we see these men (and the world is full of such) shall we say that they are like unto Christ? we may say as well, that the Pharisees were like him, and the Jews were like him, and Judas was like him, and Pilate was like him, and the Devil himself was like him, as they. No: a Christian is not so soon made up, does not grow up a perfect man in Christ in a moment; For though our first conversion be in an instant, yet it is not so in an instant, but that it is wrought in us by means, and a new making there is, whensoever we are made Christians. To be like unto Christ is a work of Time, and we grow up to this similitude by degrees; our Faith meets with many rubs and difficulties to pass over; For how often do we ask ourselves the question, How should this be? and then when by prayer and meditation, and our continued exercise in piety, we have got the victory, we build and establish ourselves in our most holy Faith. Our Hope, what is it but a conclusion gathered by much pains and experience, by curious and watchful observation, by a painful peregrination through all the powers of our souls, and actions of our life? and when with great contention we have settled these, and see an evenness and regularity in them all, than we rest in hope. And for our Charity, it is called the labour and work of Charity, for we must force out the love of the World, before we bring in the love of our Brethren; we must deny our covetousness, before we can give a penny; deny our appetite, deny ourselves, before we can taste of the powers of the world to come; we must maintain a tedious war against the flesh, and be unlike ourselves, before we can be like unto Christ; as he was made like unto us, so must we be made like unto him: and this is our union with him, and we are made one, even as he, and his Father are one.  
To draw the Parallel yet nearer; as there was a debuit upon Christ, so there is upon us, as it behoved him to be made like unto us, so it behoveth us to be like unto him: In the volume of the book it is written of him, and in the same volume we shall find it written of us, that we should do his will, and have his law in our heart, and in this as in other things, Nihil prius intuendum, quam quod decet; our first thought should be what will become us; To see Nero an Emperor with his Fiddle, or Harp, or in his Buskins acting upon a Stage; to see Domitian catching of Flies, or Hercules at the Distaff; what an incongruous thing is it? An humble Christ, and a proud Christian; a meek Christ, & a bloody Christian; an obedient Christ, and a traitorous Christian; Christ in an agony, and a Christian in pleasure; Christ fasting, and a Christian rioting; Christ on the Cross, and the Christian in a mahometical Paradise, non bene conveniunt, there is no decorum in it, nothing but Solecism & Absurdity, which even offends their eyes who commit the same, so boldly, as if it carried with it some elegancy; no: debet, and oportet, we must act our parts with art, and a decorum, do that, which behoveth us, and it is a debt, and a debt which we must be paying to our lives end, to our last breath, and then we shall take our Exit with applause.  
Lastly, to draw the Parallel to the full; Oportet, it is not only becoming us, but Necessary; for if a kind of Necessity lay upon Christ by his contract with his Father, to be made like unto us, a great necessity will lie upon us, by our covenant with him, to be like unto him; a Necessity, and woe unto us, if we be not. It is unum necessarium, it is that one thing Necessary, and there is nothing Necessary for us, but it. For run to and fro the world, and in that great Emporium and Mart of Toys and Vanities, find out one thing that is necessary, if you can, though you search it, as the Prophet speaks, with Candles: Is it necessary to be rich? Behold Dives in Hell, and Lazarus in Abraham's Bosom. Is it necessary to be Noble? Not many noble are chosen. Is it necessary to be Learned? where is the Scribe? where is the disputer of this world? Every thing hath its Necessity from us, not from itself; for of itself it cannot show any thing that should make it so: It is we that file these chains, and fashion these nails of Necessity, and make her hand of Brass: Riches are necessary, because we are covetous; Honour is necessary, because we are proud, and love to have the pre-eminence; Pleasure is necessary, because we love it more than God; Revenge is necessary, because we delight in blood. Lord, how many Necessaries do we make, when there is but one? one, sine quo non debemus, without which we ought not, and sine quo non possumus, without which we cannot be happy, and that is our assimilation, and being made like unto Christ, in whom alone all the Treasuries of Wisdom, and Riches, and Honour, all that is necessary for us, are to be found.  
And now, to conclude, we have two Nativities, Christ's Nativity and ours; he made like unto us by a miraculous Conception, and we again made like unto him by the same spirit of Regeneration, ad illum pertinuit propter nos nasci, ad nos propter illum renasci, saith S. Austin: his love it was to be born for us, and our Duty it is to give him Birth for Birth, and to be born again in him; And then as thou art merry at his Feast, he will rejoice at thine, even celebrate thy birthday, Come let us rejoice, saith he; and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, It was meet we should make merry, for these my brethren were dead, but are alive, they were lost, but they are found; they were like unto the Beasts that perish, but they are now made like unto me: Ands as Christ had an Anthem at his Birth, a full choir of the Heavenly Host praising God, so shall we at ours, Joy and Triumph at the birth of a Christian, at his assimilation to Christ; for every real resemblance of Christ is an Angel's feast, and Angels, and Archangels, and Dominations, and Powers, shall triumph at these our 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, an this Feast of our Regeneration, and be glad spectators of our growth in Christ, rejoice to see us of the same mind, every day liker and liker to him, till we grow to ripeness and maturity to be perfect men in Christ Jesus, and being made like unto him, at last be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 equal to the Angels, and with Angels and Archangels, and all the Company of Heaven cry aloud: saying, Salvation, Honour, Power, Thanksgiving, be unto him that sitteth upon the Throne, and to him that was made like unto us, even to the Lamb for evermore. Amen.   

 blazon or royal coat of arms of England and Wales HONI ●…T QVI MAL Y PENSE  
A SERMON Preached on Good-Friday.  ROM. 8.32. 
He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him give us all things?  

The Introduction.  GOds benefits come not alone, but one gift is the pledge of another, the grant of a mite, the assignment of a Talon; a drop of dew from Heaven is a Prognostique of a gracious shower, which nothing can draw dry but Ingratitude; the Father might well say, 
S. Dionys. de divin. Nom. p. 200.  that the love of God was as a constant and endless Circle from Good, to Good, in Good, without error, or inconstancy, rolling and carrying itself about in an everlasting gyre.  
He spared not, but delivered up his son for us all, saith the Text, but how many gifts did usher in this? for he gave him often in the Creation of the world; for by him were all things made, and without him was made nothing that was made: when God gives, 
Joh. 1.3  he gives his Son; for as we ask, so he gives in his name whatsoever we ask; every action of God is a gift, and every gift a tender of his Son, an art to make us capable of more. Thus the Argument of God's love is drawn à minori ad majus, from that which seems little, to that which is greater; from a Grain to a Harvest, from one Blessing to a Myriad, from Heaven to thy Soul, and from thy Creation to thy Redemption, from his Actions to his Passion, which is the true authentic instrument of his love.  
Here his love was in its Zenith, in its Vertical point, and in a direct line casts its rays of comfort on his lost Creature: Here the Argument is at the highest, and S. Paul draws it down à majori ad minus, and the Conclusion is full, full of all comfort to all. He that gives a Talon, will certainly give a Mite; he that gives his Son will also give Salvation, and he that gives Salvation will give all things which may work it out, qui tradidit, he that delivered his Son is followed with a quomodo non? how shall he not with him give us all things? quomodo non? It is impossible it should be otherwise, so that Christ comes not naked, but clothed with Blessings; he comes not empty, but with the Riches of Heaven, with the Treasuries of Wisdom and Happiness; Christ comes not alone, but with troops of Angels, with glorious Promises and Blessings; nay to make good the quomodo non, to make it unanswerable, unquestionable; It is his Nakedness that clotheth us, his Poverty that enricheth us, his no Reputation that ennobles us, his minoration that makes us great, and his Exinanition, his emptying himself that fills us, and the tradidit is an instrument of conveyance, his being delivered for us, delivers to us the possession of all things.  
Qui non pepercit, who spared not his own Son, but delivered him, etc.  
In which words there is a cloud, and a cloud of Blood, the cloud of Christ's Passion, for so most interpreters in plain terms expound the tradere by in mortem exponere, making his delivery to be nothing else, but an exposing him to shame, and misery, and death: we need not stand upon it; a tradidit were enough, for he is no sooner out of his hands, but he becomes a man of sorrows: a tradidit were enough, but here is a non pepercit, he spared him not, so spared him not, that he delivered him up, and so delivered him up, that he spared him not, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the same thing expressed by two several words to make it sure. A cloud then there is, and a cloud of Blood, but it distils in a sweet shower of Blessings, and we see a light in this cloud, by which we may draw that saving conclusion, quomodo non? How shall he not with him give us all things?  
Here then is an assignment made to Mankind: 1. Christ given: 2. Given for us all: and last of all the full stream of his Blessings issuing out with his blood; with him we have all things.  

The Division.  Or, because it is a work of infinite love, we will call it scalam amoris, the scale, or ladder of love; and then the steps, the parts considerable will be these: 1. The person delivered, Tradidit proprium Filium, he delivered his own Son. 2. The delivery and manner of it, tradidit & non pepercit, he delivered and spared him not. 3. The persons for whom, pro nobis omnibus, for us all; And these will in the last place, the end of all, the end of his Delivery, the end of all his Sufferings, and make us bold to challenge the Devil and all the world, and ask the question, quomodo non? how shall he not with him give us all things?  
Qui tradidit proprium filium, Who delivered his own Son.  
He spared not, but delivered his Son; 
Tradidit proprium filium, his own Son.  and this though we make it the first step, yet indeed it is the top of the ladder, and the highest pitch of his love, from which the light of his countenance shines upon us, and shows us that he loved us as his own Son, nay more than his own Son; and in this his manifestation of his love, is rather a Father to us than to him; de suo periclitatur, ut nos lucretur, saith the Father; to gain us, he is willing in a manner to be himself at a loss, and to win us from slavery, endanger his own, quasi orbitatis haurit doborem; he will spoil and rob himself to enrich us, and to make us his children, deliver up his own. 
Naz. or. 38.  A strange contemplation it is, and Nazianzen shuts it up in admiration, counsels us to sit down and reverence it with silence. For can God delight to make his own Son a Sacrifice, who would not suffer Abraham to do his command, and offer up his? or might he not have taken an Angel for his Son, as he did a Ram for Isaac? 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉; what reason can be given for this his Delivery? Here the object is so radiant, that it confounds the sense, and we scarce can see it when we look upon it; his love at such an height, that our contemplation cannot reach it; and though in plain terms we are told that it was done, yet we are slow of heart to believe it; and therefore Photinus adopted a Son, Arrius created one, horruit Martion, Martion was afraid of the very thought: Deliver up he might an adopted Son, some excellent creature, or a phantasm, but started back and would not come near to subscribe that he delivered up his own Son. His own Son in their Divinity, was a Son by Creation, or a Son by Adoption, or a Son in Appearance, which is not a Son. But this groundless and indiscreet care of God's Honour, was a great sin against it, and S. Ambrose observes, that they who denied this for fear, were far worse, and more injurious to Christian Religion, than they who denied it for stomach; this pretence of his Honour more dangerous than perverseness and pertinacy: for when pride, or vainglory, or ambition, shape and polish an Error, it is as soon discovered as the hands that wrought it; but when a show of love, and piety, and zeal, paint and commend it, and send it abroad in this glory, uncautelous and ignorant men are soon taken with it, never doubt, but yield, and are quickly deceived, and count it their Duty and Religion to be so. But why should we fear where no fear is? why should we fear to disparage him, when he is so well pleased to humble himself? why should we be wiser than God? why should we offend and scandalise Christ as Peter did? Be this far from the Lord, from the Son of God, that is, let God forbid that which he will have done? why should we check his Wisdom? or be troubled at his Love? when God will deliver him, to talk of improbability, or incongruity, or impossibility, is to speak against God; If he will deliver him, his will be done, and he that rests in Gods will doth best acknowledge his Majesty.  
It was his will to deliver him, and this clears all doubts, and beats down every imagination that exalteth itself against it; If he will do it, we have but one word left us for answer, Amen, let it be done: he hath wisdom and power to attend his will, and who are we that darken counsel with words without knowledge? when we fall down at his footstool and acknowledge his infinite power; when we say, He only can do wondrous works; when we in all humility acknowledge that he can do more than we can think; that he can uphold us when we are ready to fall, every us in poverty, strengthen us in weakness, supply us with all necessary means and encouragements in this our race; when we preach it on the house tops, that he can tread down all our enemies under our feet, and bind Satan in chains; when we believe and rely on it, that he is able to immortalize our flesh, to raise us out of the dust, and set us in heavenly places, we think we have raised our magnificats to the highest, and indeed a Christian need not set his Songs and Hallelujahs to a higher note; but yet we do not rise so high, nor so fully express him, as when we give him an absolute will; He doth what he will in Heaven, and in Earth; non vox hominem sonat. This can belong to none but the highest, to God the King of Kings, and Lord of Lords; and this makes him Lord paramount, and commander of all. For even his omnipotency seems to submit and veil to his will, and is commanded by it; for many things he doth not do, not because he cannot, Dei posse velle est, 
T●r●…l. advers. Praxeam. c.x.  & non posse nolle, saith Tertull, he can do what he will, and what he will not do, we may say he cannot do; quod voluit, & potuit, & ostendit, but what he would do, he could & did: what his Son? his own Son? his beloved Son, as infinite and omnipotent as himself? shall he be delivered? yes, tradidit illum, he delivered him, because he would, quia voluit; his will is that which opens the windows of heaven, and shuts them again; that binds and loses, that plants and roots up, that made the world and will destroy it; his will it was that humbled his Son, and his will it was that glorified him. He might not have done it, not have delivered him; he might, without the least impairing of his Justice, have kept him in his bosom, & never shown him to the world; but as he begatus again of the word of Truth, so he delivered up his Son 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 quia voluit, because he would. For as in the Creation God might have made man as he made the other creatures by his dixit, by his word alone, but would not, but wrought him out of the Earth, and was the Potter which form and shaped him out of the Clay with his own hands: so in the great work of our Redemption, he did not send a Moses, an Angel, a Cherubin, or Seraphim, but tradidit proprium filium, delivered up his own Son, & in this delivery gave a price infinitely above that which he brought, motal, sinful men, which were of no value at all, but that he made them; and he pays down not a Talon for a Talon, but a Talon for a Mite, for Nothing, for that which had made itself worse than nothing; his Son, for those who stood guilty of Rebellion against him, and his love for the world, which was at enmity with him. And thus he was pleased to buy his own will and love in us, and by this his infinite love to bond as it were his infinite power, his infinite wisdom, and his illimited will; for here his power, his wisdom, his will, may seem to have found a non ultra, he cannot do, he cannot find our, he cannot wish for us more, than what he hath done in the delivery of his Son.  
And now, if we ask, what moved his will? not sure any loveliness, or attractiveness in the object; there was nothing to be seen but loathsomeness and deformity, and that enmity which might sooner move him to wrath, than compassion, and make him rather send down fire and brimstone, than his Son: That which moved him was in himself, not to be found in the world, which stood out against him, and when he did come, would not receive him, but was bound up in his own bowels of mercy and compassion; he loved us in our blood, and loving us he bid us live, and that we might live, delivered up his own Son to death. For his mercy was the Orator to move his will, and being merciful, he was also willing to help us; Mercy is all our plea, and it was his motive, and wrought in him a will, a cheerful will, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Saint James; it rejoiceth against Judgement; though we had forgot our Duty, yet would not he forget his Mercy, but harkened to it, and would not continere misericordias, 
Ps●l. 77 ●.  shut up his tender mercies in Anger, which is a Metaphor taken from martial affairs; for in a siege an Army doth compass in a Town or Castle, that they may play upon it in every place, the Greeks call it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to shut it up as in a net. This is it which the Prophet David calls claudere, or continere, to shut up his mercy in anger; the Septuagint renders it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to make a trench about it and besiege it. Now the goodness of God, and his love to his Creature, would not suffer him thus to shut up his tender Mercies, as a Fort or Town is shut up to be undermined, and beat upon, and overcome; but as the besieged many times make sallies upon the enemy, so the love and mercy of our God broke forth even through his anger, and gained a conquest against the legions of his wrath. Let the World be impure, let Men be sinners, let Justice be importunate, let Power be formidable, and Vengeance ready to fall, yet all must fall back, and yield to the Mercy and Love of God, which cannot be overcome, nor bound, nor shut up, but will break forth, and make way through all opposition, through sin, and all the powers of darkness, which besiege and compass it about, and will raise the siege, drive off and chase away these Enemies, and to conquer Sin, will deliver up his Son for the Sinner. And this was aenigma amoris, saith Aquinas; this was the riddle, or rather the mystery of his love to pose the wisdom of the world: I may say, being Love, and infinite, it is no riddle at all, but plain and easy: for what can love do that is strange? what can it do amiss? that which moved him to do it, shows plainly that the end for which he did it, was very good: Dilexit nos, he loved us, is the best commentary on Tradidit Filium, he delivered his Son for us, and takes away all scruple and doubt; for if we can once love our Enemies, it is impossible but that our Bowels should yern towards them, and our will be bend and prone to raise them up even to that pitch and condition, which our love hath designed; and if our love were of that nature, Heavenly as he is Heavenly, or but in some forward degree proportioned to his, we should see nothing that were difficult, nothing that were absurd, nothing that might misbecome us, which might promote or advantage them: if our Love have heat in it, our Will will be forward and earnest, and we shall be ready to lay down our lives for them. For Love is like an Artificial Glass, and when we look through it, an Enemy appears a Friend; Disgrace, Honour; Difficulties Nothing. When he saw us weltering in our blood, his love was ready to wash us; when we ran from him, his love ran after us to apprehend us; when we fought against him as enemies, his love was a Prophet; Lo all these may be my children. What speak we of Disgrace? his Love defends his Majesty, and exalts this Humility of his son: 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, etc. saith Plato, Love hath this privilege that it cannot be defamed, and by a kind of Law hath this huge advantage, to make Bondage, Liberty; Disgrace, Honourable; Infirmity, Omnipotent: who can stand up against Love, and say, why didst thou this? Had Marciou, and Photinus, and Arrius, well weighed the force and privilege of Love; their needless fear, I may say, their bold and irreverent fear would have soon vanished, nor would they have denied Christ to be the Son of God, quia tradidit, because he delivered him up for us, but have seen as great glory in his Humility, as in his Glory, and would have fallen down and worshipped God and man, even this crucified Lord of life, Christ Jesus. Love will do any thing for those whom it looks, and stays upon. If you ask a coat, it gives the cloak also; if you desire her to go a mile, she will go with you twain, and is never weary, though she pass through places of horror and danger; if you be in the most loathsome dungeon, in the valley and shadow of death, she forsakes you not, but will go along with you. Must the Son of God be delivered? Love sends him down, Charitas de coelo demisit Christum, it was Love that bowed the Heavens, when he descended; must he suffer? Love nails him to the Cross, and no power could do it, but Love. Must he be sacrificed? Love calls it a Baptism, & coarctatur, how is Love straitened till the Sacrifice be slain? Must he die? Must the Son of God die? Love calls it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, his perfection, Heb. 2.10. So, though he be the Son of God, though we were his enemies, yet Love reconcileth all these seeming contradictions, resolves every doubt, tunes these jarring strings, and out of this discord maketh that melody which delighteth both men and Angels, and God himself; even that melody, whereof our love should be the resultance. He loved us, and then the Conclusion doth sweetly and naturally follow, Non pepercit, he spared not his own Son, but delivered him up. And so from the Person, we pass to the Delivery itself, 
Tradidit, & non pepercit, He delivered, and spared him not. 
Tradidit et non pepercit.    
The Oeconomy and glorious dispensation of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ is here termed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a delivery; and delivered he was, First, into the Virgin's womb, for that was a strange descent, and even then began his passion; Nasci se patitur, saith Tertullian, 
Tert. de patiented.  he suffered himself to be fashioned in the womb, took of man, what is proper and natural to him, to be Born and die. Here he was drawn out and fitted, made an object for the malice of men, and the rage of the Devil to work on; here he was made a mark for his enemies to shoot at, here he had a back for the whip, and flesh to be ploughed, a face to be spit upon, a body to be nailed to the Cross; here he was built up as a Temple, to be beat down again with axes and Hammers, with misery and Affliction. Mira traditio! a strange delivery it was of the son of God into the womb of a Mortal, yet tradidit illum he thus delivered him.  
And being Borne, what was his whole life, but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a delivery of him, from sorrow to sorrow, from misery to misery, from poverty to shame, from derision to malice, from malice, to death? this was the pomp and Ceremony, with which he was brought to his Cross, and from thence to his grave. Deliver me not into the hands of my enemies, saith David. Behold, his friends were his enemies: what creature was there to whom he was not delivered? Delivered to the Angels, to keep him (you will say) in all his ways; but what need had he of an Angel's assistance, whose wisdom reached over all? what need he an Angels tongue to comfort him who was Lord of the Angels, and who with his voice could have destroyed the Universe? but now he, who could turn stones into Bread, who could work it out of nothing, as he did in the multiplying of the loaves, is content toreceive an Alms from the hand of his Minister. Delivered to Joseph and Mary, 
Luk. 2.51. subject to them.  to whom, saith the Text, he was obedient: Delivered from Annas to Caiaphas, from Caiaphas to Pilate; from Pilate to Herod; from Herod to Pilate again, and from Pilate to the Jews, to do with him what they pleased; delivered to all the creatures, to heat, and to cold, to the thorns which gored him, to the whip which made long furrows in his flesh; to than ails, which fastened him; to the spear which pierced him; to the Cross which racked him; to the grave, which swallowed him; delivered to the Devil himself, and the power of darkness: No creature from the highest to the lowest, to which he was not delivered; delivered in his body and his soul; in every part of his body, in those, which seemed to be free from pain, his tongue, which their cruelty touched not; for he that was man, yet had nothing of the impatience of man, complained of Thirst; he said I thirst: Delivered up to a quick and lively sense of pain, for many times extremity of pain takes it away, and it is lost in itself, but here pain did quicken his sense; the more he endured, the more sensible he was; the more he suffered, the more feeling he had; his last gasp was breathed out 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with a strong loud voice; delivered he was to envy which delivered him, saith the Text; to treachery which betrayed him; to malice, which laid on sure strokes; to pride, which scorned him; to contempt, which spit upon him; to all those furious passions which turn men into Devils; from such a delivery we all cry Good Lord deliver us.  
But thus delivered he was not only to men, but to the passions of men, to the wild and brutish passions of his enemies, to the rage of Devils; and in the next place, not only to their passions, but his own, which as man he carried about with him, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 my soul is troubled, John 12.27. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in an Agony, Luk. 22.44. quae sentitur prius quam discitur, which none can tell what it is, but he that hath felt it, and none ever felt such an Agony but he, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he is grievously vexed. Matth. 26.38. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 his soul was very heavy, for these several expressions the Evangelists give us; Trouble, vexation, an Agony, heaviness in his soul, these were the bitter ingredients which filled up his cup so full, that he made it his prayer to have it taken out of his hand; the consideration of which hath induced some to conceive, that the sense of his pain had so weakened his intellectual faculties, that he forgot himself; non fuit haec meditata Christi oratio, saith Calvin, 
Calvin. Harm●. & in locum  his pain was so great that it gave no time or leisure to his reason, to weigh what he said, which in effect is, he spoke he knew not what. But we may truly say, non fuit haec Interpretis meditata oratio, this Author did not well understand, nor consider what he wrote, and might seem not well to have advised with his reason, that would leave wisdom itself without the use of it; no question it was the language of a bleeding Heart, and the resultance of his grief, for grieve he did and fear; and he who as God could have commanded a Legion of Angels, as man had need of one to comfort him. He was delivered up to his passions to afflict, not swallow him up; no disorder, no jar with reason, which was still above them; no sullenness in his grief, no despair in his complaints; no unreasonableness in his thoughts; not a thought which did rise amiss; not a word which was misplaced; not a motion which was not regular; he knew he was not forsaken, when he asked, why hast thou forsaken me? the bitterness of the cup struck him into a fear, when his obedience called for it; he prayed indeed, that this cup might pass from him, which was not, as some think, the cup of his Cross and passion, but this cup of his Agony; in which prayer it is plain he was heard, for the Text tells us, there stood by an Angel from God to comfort, and strengthen him, Luk. 22.43. For being of the same mould and temper, he was willing to receive the same impressions, which are so visible in man, of sorrow and fear, even those affections which are seated in the sensitive part, and without which misery and pain have no tooth at all to by't us; for our passions are the sting of misery, nor could Christ have suffered at all, if he had been free from them; if misery be a whip, 'tis our passion, and fancy that make it a Scorpion: what could malice hurt me, if I did not help the blow? what edge had an injury, if I could not be angry? what terror had death, if I did not fear? It is opinion and passion that makes us miserable; take away these, and misery is but a name. Tuned, Anaxarchum enim non tundis, you touch not the Stoic though you bray him in a mortar. Delivered then he was to these passions, to fear, and to grief, which strained his body, which racked his joints, which stretched his sinews, which trickled down in clods of blood, exhaled themselves through the pores of his flesh in a bloody sweat; the fire that melted him was his fear and his grief.  
Da si quid ultra est; is there yet any more, or can he be delivered further? not to despair, for it was impossible; not to the torments of Hell, which could never seize on his innocent soul; but Irae Dei, to the wrath of God, which withered his heart like Grass, and burnt up his bones like a Hearth; and brought him even to the dust of death. Look now upon his countenance, it is pale and wan; upon his heart, it is melted like wax; look upon his Tongue, it cleaves to the roof of his mouth: what talk we of Death? the wrath of God is truly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the fearfullest, and terriblest thing in the world; the sting of sin, which is the sting of Death. Look into your own souls; That weak apprehension of it, which we sometimes have, what a night and darkness doth it draw over us? what a night? nay what a Hell doth it kindle in us? what torments do we feel, the Types and sad representations of those in the bottomless pit? how do our delights distaste us? our desires strangle themselves? what a Tophet is the world? and what Furies are our Thoughts? what do we see, which we do not turn from? what do we know which we would not forget? what do we think, which we do not startle at? or do we know what to think? now what rock can hid us? what mountain can cover us? we are weary of ourselves, and could wish rather not to be, then to be under God's wrath; were it not for this, there would be no Law, no Conscience, no Devil, but with this the Law is a kill letter, the Conscience a Fury, and the Devil a Tormentor. But yet there is still a difference between our apprehension and his, for alas! to us his wrath doth not appear in its full Horror, for if it did we should sooner die, then offend him. Some do but think of it, few think of it as they should, and they that are most apprehensive, look upon it as at distance, as that which may be turned away; and so not fearing his wrath, treasure up wrath against the day of wrath. To us, when we take it at the nearest, and have the fullest sight of it, it appears, but as the cloud did to Elias servant, like a man's hand; but to Christ the Heavens were black with clouds and winds, and it showered down upon him, as in a tempest of fire and brimstone; (we have not his eyes, and therefore not his apprehension; we see not so much deformity in sin as he did, and so not so much terror in the wrath of God.) It were Impiety and Blasphemy to think that the blessed Martyrs were more patiented than Christ, Cujus natura patientia, 
Tert. de patiented.  saith Tert. whose very nature was patience, yet who of all that noble Army ever breathed forth such disconsolate speeches? God indeed delivered them up to the saw, to the wrack, to the teeth of Lions, to all the engines of cruelty, and shapes of death, but numquid deseruit? they never cried out they were forsaken; he snatched them not from the rage of the perescutor by a miracle, but behold a greater miracle.  
— Rident superantque dolores  
Spectanti similes— 
Sil. It 〈◊〉. 1.   
In all their Torments they had more life & joy in their countenance, than they who looked on, who were more troubled with the sight-than they were with the punishment; their Torture was their Triumph; their Afflictions were their Melody; of Weak they were made Strong.  
Tormenta, carcer, ungulae, 
Prudent. Eubal.   
Atque ipsa poenarum ultima  
Mors, Christianis ludus est.  
Torments, Racks, and Strappadoes, and the last Enemy, Death itself, were but a recreation and refreshment to the Christians, who suffered all these with the patience of a slander by. But what speak we of Martyrs? Divers sinners (whose ambition never reached at such a Crown, but rather trembled at it) have been delivered up to afflictions and crosses, nay to the anger of God; but never yet any, nay not those who have despaired, were so delivered as Christ; we may say that the Traitor Judas felt not so much, when he went and hanged himself; For though Christ could not despair, yet the wrath of God was more visible to him than to those that do, who bear but their own burden, when he lay pressed under the sins of the whole world. God in his approaches of Justice, when he comes toward the sinner to correct him, may seem to go like the Consuls of Rome with his Rod and his Axes carried before him; many sinners have felt his rod, and his Rod is Comfort; in his Frown, Favour; and in his Anger, Love; and his Blow may be a Benefit; but Christ was struck as it were with his Axe; others have trembled under his wrath, but Christ was even consumed with the stroke of his hand. For being delivered to his wrath, his wrath delivers him to these Throws and Agonies; delivers him to Judas, who delivers, nay betrays him to the Jews, who deliver him to Pilate, who delivered him to the Cross, where the Saviour of the world must be murdered, where Innocency and Truth itself hangs between two Thiefs. I mention not the Shame, the Torment of the Cross, for the Thiefs endured the same. But his soul was crucified more than his body, and his heart had sharper nails to pierce it, than his hands or his feet. Tradidit & non pepercit, he delivered him, and spared him not.  
But to rise one step more; Tradidit & deseruit, he delivered, and in a manner forsook him, restrained his influence, denied relief, withdrew his comfort, stood, as it were a far off, and let him fight it out unto death; he looked about and there was none to help, even to the Lord he called, but he heard him not, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, 
Mat. 27.46.  he roared out for the very grief of his heart, and cried with a loud voice, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? And could God forsake him? when he hung upon the Cross, did he not see the joy which was set before him? Yes he did, but not to comfort, but rather torment him, Altissimo Divinitatis consilio actum est, ut gloria militaret in paenam, saith Leo. By the counsel of the Godhead it was set down and determined, that his Glory should add to his Punishment, that his Knowledge, which was more clear than a Seraphins, should increase his Grief; his Glory, his Shame; his Happiness, his Misery; that there should not only be Vinegar in his Drink, and Gall in his Honey, and Myrrh with his Spices; but that his Drink should be Vinegar; his Honey, Gall; and all his Spices as bitter as Myrrh; that his Flowers should be Thorns; and his Triumph, Shame. This could sin do, and can we love it? This could the love and the wrath of God do, his love to his Creature, and his wrath against sin: And what a delivery, what a desertion is this, which did not deprive him of strength, but enfeeble him with strength; which did not leave him in the dark, but punish him with light? what a strange delivery was that, which delivered him up without comfort, nay which betrayed and delivered up his comforts themselves? what misery equal to that which makes Strength a Tormenter, Knowledge a Vexation, and makes Joy & Glory a Persecution? There now hangs his sacred Body on the Cross, not so much afflicted with his passion, as his Soul was wounded with compassion, with compassion on his Mother, with compassion on his Disciples, with compassion on the Jews who pierced him, for whom he prays, 
Tantam patienteam nemo unquam perpetravit. Tert. de Patientia.  when they mock him, which did manifest his Divinity as much as his miracles; with compassion on the Temple, which was shortly to be leveled with the ground; with compassion on all Mankind, bearing the burden of all, dropping his pity and his blood together upon them; feeling in himself the torments of the blessed Martyrs, the reproach of his Saints, the wounds of every broken heart, the poverty, diseases, afflictions of all his Brethren to the end of the world; delivered to a sense of their sins, who feel them not, and to a sense of theirs who groan under them; delivered up to all the miseries and sorrows, not only which he then felt, but which any men, which all men have felt, or shall feel to the time the Trump shall found, and he shall come again in Glory. The last delivery was of his soul, which was indeed traditio, an yielding it up, a voluntary emission or delivering it up into his Father's hands; praevento carnificis officio, saith the Father, he prevents the spear, and the hand of the Executioner, 
Tert. A pol.  and gives up the Ghost. What should I say? or where should I end? who can fathom this depth? The Angels stand amazed, the Heavens are hung with black, the Earth opens her mouth, and the Grave hers, and yields up her dead; the veil of the Temple rends asunder, the Earth trembles, and the rocks are cleft, but neither Art nor Nature can reach the depth of this wisdom and love; no tongue, neither of the living nor of the dead, neither of men or Angels, are able to express it. The most powerful Eloquence is the Threnody of a broken heart, for there his death speaks itself, and the virtue and power of it reflects back again upon him, and reacheth him at the right hand of God, where his wounds are open, his merits vocal, interceding for us to the end of the world.  
We have now past two steps and degrees of this scale of love with wonder and astonishment, and, I hope, with grief and love, 
Tradidit pro nobis. For us sinners.  passed through a field of Blood to the top of mount Calvarie, where the Son of God, the Saviour of the World, was nailed to the Cross, and being thus lifted up upon his Cross, he looketh down upon us to draw us after him. Look then back upon him who looks upon us, whom our sins have pierced, and behold his blood trickling down upon us; which is one ascent more, and brings in the persons for whom he was delivered, First, for us. Secondly, for us all.  
Now this pro nobis, that he should be delivered for us, is a contemplation full of delight and comfort, but not so easy to digest; for if we reflect upon ourselves, and there see nothing but confusion and horror, we shall soon ask ourselves the question, why for us? why not for the lapsed Angels, who fell from their estate as we did? They glorious Spirits, we vile Bodies; they heavenly Spirits, we of the earth earthly, ready to sink to the earth, from whence we came; they immortal Spirits, we as the Grass, withered before we grow; yet he spared not his Son, to spare us, but the Angels that fell he cast into Hell, and chained them up in everlasting darkness, 2 Pet. 2.4. We may think that this was munus honorarium, that Christ was delivered for us for some worth or excellency in us; no, it was munus eleemosynarium, a gift bestowed upon us in mere compassion of our wants; With them he deals in rigour, and relents not; with us in favour and mercy, and seeks after us, and lays hold on us, when we were gone from him, as far as sin and disobedience could carry us out of his reach: It was his love, it was his will to do so, and in this we might rest; but Divines will tell us, that man was a ritter object of mercy than they, quia levius est alienâ ment peccare quam propriâ, because the Angel's sin was more spontaneous, 
De Angelis quibusdam suâ sponte corruptis, corruption gens Daemonum evasit. Tert. Apol. c. 22.  wrought in them by themselves; man had importunam arhorem, that flattering and importuning Tree, and that subtle and seducing Serpent, to urge and sway him from his obedience; Man had a Tempter, the Angels were both the temptation and tempters to themselves; Man took in Death by looking abroad, but the Angels by reflecting upon themselves, gazed so long upon their own Beauty, till they saw it changed into horror and deformity; and the offence is more pardonable, where the motive is ab extrinseco, from some outward assoil, than where it grows up of itself. Besides, the Angels did not all fall, but the whole lump of mankind was leavened with the same leaven, and pity it may seem, that so noble a Creature made up after Gods own Image, should be utterly lost. These reasons with others we may admit, though they may seem rather to be conjectures than reasons, and we have not much light in Scripture to give them a fairer appearance; but the Scripture is plain, that he took not the Angels, Heb. 2.16. he did not lay his hands upon them, to redeem them to liberty, and strike off their Bonds, and we must go out of the world to find out the reason, and seek the true cause in the bosom of the Father, nay in the bowels of his Son, and there see the cause why he was delivered for us written in his Heart; it was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Tit. 3.4. the love of God to mankind, and what was in mankind but enmity and hostility, sin and deformity, which are no proper motives to draw on his love? and yet he loved us, and hated sin, and made haste to deliver us from it; Dilexisti me, domine, plusquam te, quando mori voluisti pro me, saith Aust. Lord when thou died'st for me, thou madest it manifest, that my soul was dearer to thee, than thyself; such a high esteem did he set upon a Soul, which we scarce honour with a thought, but so live, as if we had none. For us men then, and For us Sinners was he delivered, the Prophet Esay speaks it, and he could not speak it so properly of any, but him, He was wounded for our transgressions, and broken for our Iniquities, So that he was delivered up not only to the cross, 
E● 53.  and shame, but to our sins which nailed him to the cross, which crucified him not only in his Humility, but in his glory, now he sits at the right hand of God, and puts him to shame to the end of the world. Falsò de Judaeis querimur, why complain we of the Jews malice? or Judas' treason? of pilate's injustice? we, we alone are they, who crucified the Lord of life; Our Treachery was the Judas which betrayed him; Our malice, the Jew which accused him; our perjury, the false witness against him; our Injustice, the  that condemned him; our pride scorned him; our envy grinned at him; our luxury spit upon him; our covetousness sold him; our corrupt blood was drawn out of his wounds; our swell pricked with his Thorns; our sores lanced with his spear, and the whole Body of sin stretched out and crucified with the Lord of life. Tradidit pro nobis, he delivered him up for us sinners; no sin there is, which his blood will not wash away, but final impenitency, which is not so much a sin, as the sealing up of the body of sin, when the measure is full; pro nobis, for us sinners; for us? for us the progeny of an arch-traitor, and as great traitors as he, take us at our worst; if we repent, he was delivered for us, and if we do not repent, yet he may be said to be delivered for us, for he was delivered for us to that end that we might repent.  
Pro nobis, 
Pro nobis omnibus, so us all.  for us men, and for us sinners he was delivered; pro infirmis, for us when we were without strength; pro impiis, for us when we were ungodly; pro peccatoribus, for sinners; Rom. 5.6,7. for so we were considered in this great work of our Redemption, and thus high are we gone on this scale and ladder of love. There is one step more, pro nobis omnibus, he was delivered for us all, all, not considered as elect, or reprobate, but as men, as smners, for that name will take in all, for all have sinned. And here we are taught to make a stand, and not to touch too hastily, and yet the way is plain and easy; pro omnibus, for all; this some will not touch, and yet they do touch, and press it with that violence, that they press it almost into nothing, make the world not the world, and whosoever not whosoever, but some certain men, and turn all into a few, deduct whom they please out of all people, Nations, and Languages, and out of Christendom itself, and leave some few with Christ upon the Cross, whose persons he bears, whom they call the elect, and mean themselves; sic Deus dilexit mundum, so God loved the world, that is the Elect, say they, 
John 3.16.  they are the world, where 'tis hard to find them; for they are called out of it, and the best light we have, which is of Scripture, discovers them not unto us in that place; and if the Elect be this world which God so loved, than they are such Elect, which may not believe, and such elect as may perish, and whom God will have perish, if they do not believe. 'tis true, none have benefit of Christ's death but the Elect, but from hence it doth not follow, that no other might have had; theirs is the kingdom of heaven, but are not they shut out now, who might have made it theirs? God, saith Saint Peter, would not that any should perish, 2 Pet. 3.8. and God is the Saviour of all men, saith Saint Paul, but especially of those that believe, 1 Tim. 4.10. all, if they believe, and repent; and those who are obedient to the Gospel, because they do; the blood of Christ is poured forth on the Believer, and with it he sprinkles his heart, and is saved; the wicked trample it under their foot, and perish. That the blood of Christ is sufficient to wash away the sins of the world, nay of a thousand worlds; that Christ paid down a ransom of so infinite a value, that it might redeem all that are or possibly might be under that Captivity; that none are actually redeemed, but they who make him their Captain, and do as he commands; that is, believe and repent; or to speak in their own language, none are saved but the elect: In this all agree, in this they are Brethren, and why should they fall out, when both hold up the privilege of the believer, and leave the rod of the stubborn Impenitent to fall upon him? The death of Christ is not applied to all, say some; It is not for all, say others; the virtue of Christ's meritorious passion is not made use of by all, say some; it was never intended, that it should, say others; and the event is the same, for if it be not made use of and applied, it is as if it were not, as if it had never been obtained; only the unbeliever is left under the greater condemnation, who turned away from Christ who spoke unto him, not only from heaven, but from his cross, and refused that grace which was offered him, which could not befall him, if there had never been any such overture made; for how can he refuse that which never concerned him? how can he forfeit that pardon, which was never sealed? how can he despise that spirit of grace, which never breathed towards him? They who are so tender and jealous of Christ's blood, that no drop must fall, but where they direct it, do but veritatem veritate concutere, undermine, and shake one truth with another; set up the particular love of God to believers, to overthrow his general love to Mankind; confound the virtue of Christ's passion, with the effect, and draw them together within the same narrow compass; bring it under a Decree, that it can save no more than it doth, because it hath its bounds set, hitherto it shall go and no further, and was ordained to quicken some, but to withdraw itself from others as shut out and hid from the light and force of it, or having any Title to it, long before ever they saw the sun; And thus they shorten the hand of God, when it is stretched out to all; bound his love, which is profferred to all, stint the blood of Christ, which gusheth out upon all; and circumcise his mercy, which is a large cloak, saith Bernard, large enough to cover all; and the reason is no better than the position, quod vis esse charum, effice ut sit rarum, to make salvation more precious and estimable, it must be rare; Then 'tis most glorious when 'tis a peculiar; when 'tis entailed on a few; why should the love of God be a common thing? I answer, why should it not be common, since he is pleased to have it so? why should he cast away so many, to endear a few? and can there be any glory in that privilege, which is writ with the blood of so many millions? why should it not be common, since he would have it not only common, but communicated to all, and expresses himself as one grieved, and troubled, and angry, because it is not so? why should we fear God's love should be cast away by being proffered to many? His love of friendship and complacency to those whom he calls his Friends, cannot be lost, but is as eternal as himself, it assists, and upholds them, and will crown them everlastingly. Nor is his general love of good will and affection lost, though it be lost; for it is ever with him, even when the wicked are in hell. Plus est bonitas Dei, quam beneficentia; Christ's blood is ever in the Flow, though there be but few that take the Tide, and are carried along with it; God's goodness is larger than his Beneficence; he doth not do what good he can, or rather, he doth not do what good he would, because we fall back, and will not receive it; we will not suffer him to be good, we will not suffer him to be merciful, we will not suffer him to save us. This is the condemnation of the world, 
John 3 19  that light came into the world, and men loved darkness more than light. 
Ap●l. Flor. 1.  The Philosopher will tell us of the Indians, ad nascentem solem siti sunt, tamen in corpore color noctis est, they live at the very rising of the sun, yet their Bodies are black and swarthy and resemble the night; so many there be, who live in the very Region of light, where the Beams fall upon them hot and pure, and are darted at their very eyes, and yet remain the Children of darkness: Facit infidelitas multorum ut Christus non pro omnibus moriatur, qui pro omnibus mortuus est, saith Saint Ambrose; Christ was delivered for all, is a true proposition; it is Infidelity alone that can make it Heretical, and yet 'tis true still, though to him that believes not, it is of no more use than if it were false; he was delivered for thee, but thou wilt not receive it; his passion is absolute, but thou art impenitent; he died for Judas who betrayed him, but will not save Judas that despaired, and hanged himself: Infidelity, and impenitency are the worst Restrictives which limit and draw down to particulars, a proposition so profitably general, and bound so saving a universal, that contract and sink all into a few.  
To conclude this; Christ's hanging on the Cross looks upon all, but all do dot cast an eye, and look up in faith upon him; he was delivered to deliver all, but all will not be delivered: Omnis natura nostra in Christi hypostasi invixit, Our whole nature was united in Christ's person; not the persons of a few, but our whole nature, and our whole nature is of compass large enough to take in all; and in that common nature of man he offered up himself on the Cross, for the sin of all, that he might tollere peccatum mundi, take away the sin of the world, destroy the very species and being of it; which though it be not done, cannot be imputed to any scantness, or deficiency of virtue in his blood, which is of power to purge out sin wheresoever it is, if the heart that fosters it, be ready and willing to receive and apply it: And in this common nature of man, not from Abraham or David, but from the first man Adam himself, as Saint Luke carries up his Genealogy, did Christ offer up himself upon the Cross; and in this common nature, he presents himself before his Father, and now God looks upon Christ and mankind, as our eye doth upon light, and colours, which cannot be seen without light; before this light came into the world, we were covered over with darkness, and deformity, and God could not look upon us, but in anger; but through this common light we may be seen and be beloved, we may be seen with pleasure; for as he was delighted in his Son, so in him he is well pleased in those sons which he shall bring with him to glory; but it we will fully withdraw ourselves from this light, then doth his soul hate us. Christ is the brightness of his Glory, light enough for God to look through upon a thousand worlds, multiplied a thousand times; and if we do not hid ourselves from it, hid ourselves in the caverns of Earth in the world; If we do not drown ourselves in the bottom of the Sea, in the deluge of our lusts; if we do not bury ourselves alive in stubborn impenitency; if we do not stop up all the passages of our souls, if we do not still love darkness, and make it a pavilion round about us; he will look upon us through this light, and look lovingly upon us with favour and Affection, he will look upon us, as his purchase, and he that delivered him for us, will with him give us all things; which is the end of all, the end of this his being delivered, and offers itself to our consideration in the last place.  

The end. With him he gives all things.  He delivered, he sent, he gave him, for all these expressions we find to make him a Gift: He is the desire, and he is the riches of all Nations, so that, as whatsoever we do we must do, so whatsoever we have we receive in his name: The name of Jesus, saith S. Peter of the impotent man, 
Act● 3.  hath made this man strong; by his name we are justified, by his name we are sanctified, and by his name we shall enter into glory, with him we have all things, for in him are all the treasuries of Riches and Wisdom; we may think of all the Kingdoms of the earth and the glory of them, but these come not within the compass, nor are to be reckoned amongst his Donations. For as the Naturalists observe of the glory of the Rainbow, that it is wrought in our eye, and not in the cloud, and that there is no such pleasing variety of colours there, as we see; so the pomp and riches, & glory of this world are of themselves nothing, but are the work of our opinion, and the creations of our fancy, have no worth, nor price, but what our lusts and desires set upon them, luxuria his pretium fecit, 'tis our luxury, which hath raised the market, and made them valuable and in esteem, which of themselves have nothing to commend them, and set them off. My covetousness makes that which is but earth a God; my ambition makes that which is but air, as heaven; and my wantonness walks in the midst of pleasures, as in a Paradise; there is no such thing as Riches and Poverty, Honour and Peasantry, Trouble and pleasure, but we have made them, and we make the distinction; there are no such plants grow up in this world of themselves, but we set them, and water them, and they spread themselves, and cast a shadow, and we walk in this shadow, and delight or disquiet ourselves in vain. Diogenes was a King in his tub, when great Alexander was but a Slave in the world which he conquered; how many heroic persons lie in chains, whilst folly and baseness walk at large? and no doubt there have been many, who have looked through the paint of the pleasures of this life, and beheld them as monsters, and then made it their pleasure and triumph to contemn them. And yet we will not quite exclude and shut out riches, and the things of this world, from the sum, for with Christ they are something, and they are then most valuable, when for his sake we can fling them away; for it is he alone that can make Riches a gift, and Poverty a gift; Honour a gift, and Dishonour a gift; Pleasure a gift, and Trouble a gift; Life a gift, and Death a gift; by his power they are reconciled and drawn together, and are but one and the same thing; for if we look up into heaven, there we shall see them in a near conjunction, even the poor Lazar in the rich man's bosom. In the night there is no difference to the eye between a Pearl and a Pibble-stone, between the choicest beauty and most abhorred deformity. In the night the deceitfulness of riches, and the glory of affliction lie hid, and are not seen, or in a contrary shape, in the false shape of terror where it is not, or glory, where it is not to be found; but when the light of Christ's countenance shines upon them, than they are seen as they are, and we behold so much deceitfulness in the one, that we dare not trust them, and so much hope and advantage in the other, that we begin to rejoice in them, and so make them both conducible to that end for which he was delivered, and our convoys to happiness.  
All things is of a large compass, large enough to take in the whole world, but than it is the world transformed & altered, the world conquered by Faith, the world in subjection to Christ; All things are ours, when we are Christ's; for there is a Civil Dominion and right to these things, and this we have jure creationis, by right of Creation, for the earth is the Lords, and he hath given it to the sons of men; and there is an Evangelical Dominion, not the power of having them, but the power of using them to his glory, that they may be a Gift; and this we have jure adoptionis, by right of Adoption, as the sons of God, begotten in Christ. Christ came not into the world to purchase it for us, or enstate us in it, he did not suffer that we might be wanton, nor was poor that we might be rich, nor was brought to the dust of death, that we might be set in high places; such a Messiah did the Jews look for, and such a Messiah do some Christians worse than the Jews frame to themselves; and in his name they beat their fellow-servants, and strip them, deceive and defraud them, because they fancy themselves to be his, in whom there was found no guile, and they are in the world as the mad Athenian was on the shore; every ship, every house, every Lordship is theirs; and indeed they have as fair a title to their brother's estate, as they have to the kingdom of Heaven, for they have nothing to show for either. I remember in 2 Corinth. 4.4. S. Paul calls the Devil the God of this world, and these, in effect, make him the Saviour of the world; for (as if he had been lifted up and nailed to the Cross for them) to him every knee doth bow, nor will they receive the true Messiah, but in this shape: for thus they conceive him giving gifts unto men, not spiritual, but temporal, not the Graces of the Spirit, Humility, Meekness, and Contentedness; but Silver and Gold, dividing Inheritances, removing of Landmarks, giving to Ziba Mephibosheths' land, making not Saints, but Kings upon the earth; and thus they of the Church of Rome have set it down for a positive truth, that all civil Dominion is founded in Grace, that is, in Christ; a Doctrine which brings with it a Pick-lock, and a Sword, and gives men power to defraud or spoil whom they please, and to take from them that which is theirs, either by fraud or by violence, and to do both in the name and power of Christ. But let no man make his charter larger than it is, and in the Gospel we find none of such an extent, which may reach to every man, to every corner of the earth, which may measure out the world, and put into our hands any part of it, that either our wit or our power can take in; for Christ never drew any such conveyance, the Gospel brought no such tidings, but when labour and industry have brought them in, sets a seal, imprints a blessing on them, sanctifies them unto us by the Word, and by Prayer, and so makes them ours, our servants to minister unto, and our friends to promote, and lift us forward into everlasting habitations.  
Our Charter is large enough, and we need not interline it with those Glosses, which the Flesh and the love of the World will soon suggest; with Christ we have all things, which work to that end, for which he was delivered: we have his commands, which are the pledges of his love, for he gave us them that he might give us more, that he might give us a Crown: we have his promises of immortality and eternal life; Faciet hoc, nam qui promisit est potens, he shall do it, for he is able to perform it: with him every word shall stand, he hath given us faith, for that is the gift of God, to apprehend and receive them, and hope to lift us up unto them: He hath given us his Pastors to teach us (that is scarce looked upon as a gift) but than he hath given us his Angels to minister unto us, and he hath given us his Spirit, fills us with his Grace, if we will receive it, which will make his commands, which are now grievous, easy; his Promises, which are rich, profitable, which may carry us on in a regular and peaceable course of piety and obedience; which is our Angel, which is our God, and we call it Grace. All these things we have with Christ, and the Apostle doth not only tell us that God doth give us them; but to put it out of doubt, puts up a quomodo non? challenges, as it were the whole world to show, how it should be otherwise, How will he not with him give us all things? And this question adds energy, and weight, and emphasis, and makes the position more positive, the affirmation more strong, and the truth of it more persuasive and convincing, shall he not give us all things? It is impossible but he should; more possible for a City upon a hill to be hid, than for him to hid his favour from us; more possible for Heaven to sink into Hell, or Hell to raise itself up to his Mercy-seat, than for him to withhold any thing from them to whom he hath given his Son: Impossible 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, as most inconvenient, as that which is against his Wisdom, 
Naz. Or. 36.  his Justice, his Goodness, and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, as abhorrent to his will to deny us any thing: In brief, if the Earth be not as Iron, the Heavens cannot be as Brass, God cannot but give, when we are fit to receive, and in Christ we are made capable; and when he is given, all things are given with him, nay more than all things, more than we can desire, more than we can conceive; when he descends, Mercy descends with him in a full shower of Blessings to make our Souls as the Paradise of God, to quicken our Faith, to rouse up our Hope, and in this Light, in this Assurance, in this Heaven we are bold with S. Paul to put up the question against all Doubts, all Fears, all Temptations that may assault us, He that sparede not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him give us all things?  

The Conclusion.  And now we have passed up every step and degree of this scale and ladder of love, and seen Christ delivered and nailed to the Cross, and from thence he looks down, and speaks to us to the end of the world, Crux patientis fuit Cathedra docentis, the Cross on which he suffered was the Chair of his profession, and from this Chair we are taught Humility, constant Patience, and perfect Obedience, an exact art and method of living well, drawn out in several lines, so that what was ambitiously said of Homer, that if all Sciences were lost, they may be found in him, may most truly be said of his Cross and Passion, that if all the characters of Innocency, Humility, Obedience, Love, had been lost, they might here be found in libro vitae agni, in the Book of the Life, nay of the Death of the Lamb, slain from the foundation of the World, yet now nailed to the Cross.  
Let us then with Love and Reverence look upon him, whothus' looks upon us, put on our Crucified Jesus, that is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Chrys. every Virtue, his Humility, his Patience, his Obedience, and so bear about with us the dying of our Lord, and draw the picture of a Crucified Saviour in ourselves. To this end was he delivered up for us, to this end we must receive him, that we may glorify God, as he hath glorified him on earth, for God's Glory and our Salvation are twisted together, and wrought as it were in the same thread, are linked together in the same bond of Peace, I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me. Thus it runs, and it runs on evenly in a stream of love.  
Oh, how must it needs delight him to see his Gift prosper in our hands, to see us delivering up ourselves to him who was thus delivered for us; to see his purchase, those who were bought with this price, made his peculiar people! Lift then up the gates of your souls, that this King of Glory may come in: If you seek Salvation, you must seek the glory of God; and if you seek the glory of God, you shall find it in your Salvation: Thou may'st cry, lo here it is, or lo there it is, but here it is found: The Jew may seek salvation in the Law; the Superstitious in Ceremony, and bodily exercise; the Zealot in the Fire and in the Whirlwind; the fantastic lazy Christian in a Thought, in a Dream; and the profane Libertine in Hell itself: Then, then alone we find it, when we meet it in conjunction with the glory of God, which shines most gloriously in a Crucified Christ, and an Obedient Christian, made conformable to him, and so bearing about in him the marks of the LORD JESUS.  
To conclude then: Since God hath delivered up his Son for us all, and with him given us all things; let us open our hearts and receive him, that is, Believe in his name, that is, be faithful to him, that is, love him, and keep his Commandments, which is our conformity to his Death, and then he will give us; what will he give us? he will heap gift upon gift, give us power to become the Sons of God. Let us receive him, take in Christ, take him in his Shame, in his Sorrow, in his Agony, take him hanging on the Cross, take him, and take a pattern by him; that as he was, so we may be troubled for our sins, that we may mingle our Tears with his Blood, drag our Sin to the Bar, accuse and condemn it, revile and spit in its Face, at the fairest presentment it can make; and then nail it to the Cross, that it may languish and faint by degrees, and give up the Ghost, and die in us, and then lie down in peace in his Grave, and expect a glorious Resurrection to eternal life, where we shall receive Christ, not in Humility, but in Glory, and with him all his Riches, and Abundance, all his glorious Promises, even Glory and Immortality, and Eternal life.   

 blazon or royal coat of arms of England and Wales HONI ●…T QVI MAL Y PENSE  
A SERMON Preached on Easter-Day.  REV. 1.18. 
I am he that liveth, and was dead, and behold I live for evermore, Amen, and have the keys of Hell and of Death.  
WE do not ask, of whom speaketh S. John this? or who is he that speaks it? for we have his character drawn out in lively colours in the verses going before my Text. The Divine calls him a voice, ver. 12. when he means the man who spoke it. I turned to see the voice that spoke with me; and in the next verse tells us, he was like to the Son of man in the midst of the seven golden Candlesticks, governing his Church, setting his Tabernacle amongst men; not abhorring to walk amongst them, and to be their God, 
Le●. 26.11,12.  that they might be his people.  
Will ye see his Robes and Attire? Clothed he was with a garment down to the foot, which was the Garment of the High Priest, and his was an unchangeable Priesthood, Heb. 7.24. and he had a golden Girdle, or Belt, as a King, v. 13. for he is a King for ever, and of his kingdom there shall be no end: Righteousness shall be the girdle of his loins, and Faithfulness he girdle of his reins, Es. 11.5. His head and his hairs were white as wool, v. 14. and as white as snow, his Judgement pure and uncorrupt, not biased by outward respects, not tainted or corrupted by any turbulent affection, but smooth, & even as waters are, when no wind troubles them; His eyes as a flame of fire, piercing the inward man, searching the secrets of the heart, nor is there any action, word, or thought, which is not manifest in his sight: His feet like unto fine brass, sincere and constant, like unto himself in all his proceed, in every part of his Oeconomy; his voice as many waters, v. 15. declaring his father's will, with power, and authority, sounding out the Gospel of peace to all the world: and last of all out of his mouth went a sharp two-edged sword, v. 16. not only dividing asunder the soul, and the spirit, but discerning the thoughts and intents of the heart, and taking vengeance on those who persecute his Church. His Majesty dazzled every mortal eye; his Countenance was as the Sun shining in his strength; and now of him who walks in the midst of his Church, whose Mercy is a large Robe reaching down to the feet, who is girt with Power, who is clothed with Justice, whose Wisdom pierceth even into darkness itself, whose Word is heard from one end of the world to the other, whose Majesty displays its beams through every corner of it, we cannot but confess with Peter, This is Christ, the Son of the living God.  
And can the Saviour of the world, the desire of the Nations, the glory of his Father; can Beauty itself appear in such a shape of Terror? shall we draw out a merciful Redeemer with a warrior's Belt? with eyes of Fire? with feet of Brass? with a voice of Terror? with a sharp two-edged Sword in his mouth? Yes: such a High Priest became us, who is not only merciful, but just; not only meek, but powerful; not only fair, but terrible; not only clothed with the darkness of Humility, but with the shining robes of Majesty; who can die, and can live again, and live for evermore; who suffered himself to be judged and condemned, and shall judge and condemn the world itself. S. John indeed was troubled at this sight, and fell down as dead, but Christ rouzeth him up, and bids him shake off this fear; for he is terrible to none, but those who make him so; to Heretics, and Hypocrites, and Persecutors of his Church, to those who would have him neither wise, nor just, nor powerful, non accepimus iratum, sed fecimus, he is not angry till we force him, & 'tis rather our sins that turn back again upon us as furies, than his wrath, that makes him cloth himself with vengeance, and draw his sword: To S. John, to those that bow before him, he is all Sweetness, all Grace, all Salvation, and upon these, as upon St. John, he lays his right hand, quickens and rouzeth them up: Fear not, neither my girdle of Justice, nor my eyes of fire, nor my feet of brass, nor my mighty voice, nor my two-edged sword; for my Wisdom shall guide you, my power shall defend you, my Majesty shall uphold you, and my Mercy shall crown you. Fear not, I am the first and the last; more humble than any, more powerful than any, scorned, whipped, crucified, and now highly exalted, and Lord of all the world. I am he that liveth, and was dead, and behold I live for evermore, etc.  
Which words I may call (as Tertullian doth the Lord's Prayer) breviarium Evangelii, the breviary, or sum of the whole Gospel, or with Austin, symbolnm abbreviatum, the Epitome and abridgement of our Creed, and such a short Creed we find in Tertullian, which he calls Regulam veram, immobilem & irreformabilem, the sole, immutable, unalterable rule of Faith, and then  
The articles or parts will be these— 

1. The Death of Christ, I was dead.  
2. The Resurrection of Christ, with the effect and power of it, I am he that liveth.  
3. The duration, and continuance of his life, which is to all eternity, I live for evermore.  
4. Power of Christ, which he purchased by his death, the power of the keys; I have the keys of Hell, and of Death. And these,    


1. Are ushered in with an Ecce, Behold, that we may consider it.  
2. Sealed & ratified with an Amen, that we may believe it.    
That there be not in any of us, as the Apostle speaks, an unbelieving heart to departed from the living God: I am he that liveth, and was dead.  
And of the death of Christ we spoke the last day: 
Par: 1.  we shall only now look upon it in reference to the Resurrection, consider it as past; for it is fui mortuus, I was dead; and in this we may see the method and proceeding of our Saviour, which he drew out in his blood, which must sprinkle those who are to be saved, and make them nigh unto him to follow in the same method, à morte ad vitam, 
Luke 24.25 Heb. 2.20  from suffering to glory, from death to life. Tota ecclesia cum Christo computatur ut una persona, Christ and his Church are in computations but one person; he ought to suffer, and we ought to suffer; they suffer in him, and he in hem, to the end of the world; nor is any other method, either answerable to his infinite Wisdom and Justice, which hath set it down in indelible characters, nor to our mortal and frail condition, which must be bruised, before it can be healed; must be leveled with the ground, before it can be raised up; quicquid Deo convenit, 
Tetuil.  homini prodest, that which is convenient for Christ, is profitable for us; that which becometh him, we must wear as an ornament of grace unto our head; there is an oportet set upon both, he ought, and we ought first to suffer, and then to enter into glory; to die first, that we may rise again.  
And first, it cannot consist with the wisdom of God, that Christ should suffer and die, and we live as we please, and the reign with him, and so pass à deliciis in delicias, from one paradise to another; that he should overcome the Devil for those who will be his vassals; that he should foil him in his proud temptations, for those who will not be humble; beat off his sullen temptation, for those who will distrust and murmur; that he should make his victorious death commeatum delinquendi, a licence and charter for all generations to fling away their weapons, and not strike a stroke: If he should have done this, we could not have taken him for our Captain, and if we will not enter the lists, he will not take us for his Soldiers; non novimus Christum si non credimus, we do not know Christ, if we believe him not to be such a one as he is, a Captain that leads us, as Moses did the children of Israel through the Wilderness full of fiery Serpents, into Canaan; through the valley of death into life.  
Nor is it expedient for us who are not born, but made Christians, (and a Christian is not made with a thought) whose lifting up supposes some dungeon, or prison in which we formerly were; whose rising looks back into some grave. Tolle certamen, ne virtus quidem quicquam erit, take away his combat with our spiritual enemies, with afflictions and tentations, & Religion itself were but a bare name, and Christianity, as Leo the tenth is said to have called it, a fable. What were my Patience, if no misery did look towards it? what were my Faith, if there were no doubt to assoil it? what were my Hope, if there were no scruple to shake it? what were my Charity, if there were no misery to urge it, no malice to oppose it? what were my Day, if I had no Night? or what were my Resurrection, if I were never dead? Fui mortuus, I was dead, saith the Lord of life, and it is directed to us, who do but think we live, but are in our graves, entombed in this world (which we so love) compassed about with enemies, covered with disgraces, raked up, as it were, in those evils, which are those locusts which come out of the smoke of the bottomless pit; & when we hear this voice, & by the virtue and power of it look upon these, and make a way through them, we rise with Christ, our hope is lively, and our faith is that victory, which overcometh the world.  
Nor need this Method seem grievous unto us, for these very words, Fui mortuus I was dead, may put life and light into it, and commend it, not only as the truest, but as a plain and easy method: For by his Death we must understand all those forerunning miseries, all that he suffered before his death, which were as the Train, and Ceremony, as the officers of the High priest to lead him to it; as poverty, scorn and contempt, the burden of our sins, his Agony and bloody sweat, which we must look upon as the principles of this Heavenly science, by which our best master learned to secure us in our sufferings, to lift us up out of our graves, and to raise us from the dead. There is life in his death, and comfort in his sufferings; for we have not such an High priest, who will not help us, but which is one, and a chief end of his suffering and death who is touched with the feeling of our Infirmities, and is merciful and faithful, Heb. 2.17. hath not only power, (for that he may have, and not show it) but a will and propension, a desire, and diligent care to hold up them who are ready to fall, and to bring them back, who were even brought to the Gates of death. Indeed mercy without power can beget but a good wish, Saint James his complemental charity; Be ye warmed, and be ye filled, and be ye comforted, which leaves us cold, and empty, and comfortless: and Power without mercy, will neither strengthen a weak knee, nor heal a broken heart, may as well strike us dead, as revive us; but Mercy and Power, when they meet and kiss each other, will work a miracle, will uphold us when we fall, and raise us from the dead, will give eyes to the blind, and strength to the weak, will make a fiery furnace a Bath, a Rack a Bed, and persecution a Blessing, will call those sorrows that are, as if they were not; such a virtue, and force, such life there is in these three words, I was dead.  
For though his compassion and mercy were coeternal with him as God, yet as man, didicit, he learned it. He came into the world, as into a School, and there learned it by his sufferings and death, Heb. 5.8. For the way to be sensible of another's misery, is first to feel it in ourselves; it must be ours, or if it be not ours, we must make it ours, before our heart will melt; I must take my brother into myself, I must make myself as him, before I help him; I must be that Lazar that begs of me, and then I give; I must be that wounded man by the way side, and then I pour my oil and wine into his wounds, and take care of him; I must feel the Hell of sin in myself, before I can snatch my Brother out of the fire. Compassion is first learned at home, and then it walks abroad, and is eyes to the blind, and feet to the lame, and heals two at once, both the miserable, and him that comforts him; for they were both under the same disease, one as sick as the other; I was dead, and I suffered, are the main strength of our Salvation. For though Christ could no more forget to be merciful, than he could leave off to be the son of God, yet before he emptied himself, and took upon him the form of a servant, sicut miseriam expertus non era, ita nec miscricordiam experimento novit, saith Hilary, as he had no experience of sorrow, so had he no experimental knowledge of mercy and compassion; his own hunger moved him to work that miracle of the loaves, for it is said in the Text, He had compassion on the multitude; his poverty made him an Crator for the poor, and he begs with them to the end of the world; He had not a hole to hid his head, and his compassion melted into tears at the sight of Jerusalem: When he became a man of sorrows, he became also a man of compassion. And yet his experience of sorrow, in truth, added nothing to his knowledge, but raiseth up a confidence in us to approach near unto him, who by his miserable experience is brought so near unto us, and hath reconciled us in the Body of his flesh, 
Coloss. 1.21.  for he that suffered for us, hath compassion on us, and suffers and is tempted with us, even to the end of the world; on the Cross with Saint Peter, on the Block with S. Paul, in the fire with the Martyrs, destitute, afflicted, tormented: would you take a view of Christ looking towards us with a melting eye? you may see him in your own souls, take him in a groan, mark him in your sorrow, behold him walking in the clefts of a broken heart, bleeding in the gashes of a wounded spirit; or, to make him an object more sensible, you may see him every day begging in your streets; when he tells you, He was dead, he tells you as much; In as much as the children were partakers of flesh and Blood, he also himself took part of the same, and in our flesh was a hungry, was spit upon, was whipped, was nailed to the Cross, which were as so many parts of that discipline, which taught him to be merciful; to be merciful to them who were tempted by hunger, because he was hungry; to be merciful to them who were tempted by poverty, because he was poor; to be merciful to those who tremble at disgrace, because he was whipped; to be merciful to them, who will not, yet will suffer for him; who refuse and yet choose, tremble and yet venture; are afraid, and yet die for him; because as man he found it a bitter Cup, and would have had it pass from him, who in the days of his flesh offered up prayers, and supplications with strong crying and tears for mortal men, for weak men, for sinners: pertinacissimè durant quae discimus experientiâ, 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Ari●…. An●…. post. l 2. c. nineteen.  This experimental knowledge is so rooted and fixed in him, that it cannot be removed now, no more than his natural knowledge; he can as soon be ignorant of our actions as our sufferings, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith the Philosopher, Experience is a collection of many particulars registered in our memory; and this experience he had, and our Apostle tells us didicit, he learned it, and the Prophet tells us, he was vir sciens infirmitatum, 
Es. 53.  a man well read in sorrows, acquainted with grief, and carried it about with him from his Cradle to his cross; and by his Fasting and Tentation, by his Agony; and bloody sweat, by his precious Death and Burial he remembers us in famine, in Tentation, in our Agony; he remembers us in the hour of death, in our grave (for he pities even our dust) and will remember us in the day of judgement.  
We have passed through the hardest part of this Method, and yet it is as necessary as the end; for there is no coming to it without this; no peace without trouble, no life without death; Not that life is the proper effect of death; for this clear stream flows from a higher, and purer fountain, even from the will of God, who is the fountain of life, which meeting with our obedience (which is the conformity of our will to his) maketh its way with power through fire and water, as the Psalmist speaks, through poverty and contumilies, through every cloud and tempest, through darkness, and death itself, and so carries it on, to end and triumph in life: I was dead, that was his state of humility; but I am alive, that's his state of Glory; and is in the next place to be considered.  
Vivo, I am alive; Christ hath spoken it, who is truth itself, and we may take his word for it, for if we will not believe him when he says it, neither should we believe, if we should see him rising from the dead. And this his life and resurrection is most conveniently placed in that, Non dabis, thou wilt not suffer thy holy one to see corruption; for what stronger reason can there be found out in matters of faith then the will & pleasure of that God, who brings mighty things to pass? & to this end Saint Paul citys the 2. Psalm, and S. Peter the 16. and in this the humble soul may rest, and behold the object in its glory, and so gather strength to raise itself above the fading vanities of this world, and so reach, and raise to immortality. What fairer evidence then that of Scripture? what surer word than the word of Christ? He that cannot settle himself on this, is but as S. Judes' cloud, carried about with every wind, wheeled and circled about from imagination to imagination; now raised to a belief that it is true, and anon cast down into the midst of darkness; now assenting, anon doubting, and at last pressed down by his own unstableness into the pit of Infidelity. He that will not walk by that light which shines upon him, whilst he seeks for more, must needs stumble and fall at those stones of offence, which himself hath laid in his own way; why should it be thought a thing incredible, that God should raise the dead to life? If such a thought arise in a Christian, 
Acts 26.8.  reason never set it up: I verily thought myself, saith Saint Paul in the next verse, but it was when he was under the Law, and he whose thoughts are staggered here, is under a worse law, the law of his members, his lusts, by which his thoughts and actions are held up, as by a law; is such a one that studies to be an Atheist, is ambitious to be like the beasts that perish, and having nothing in himself, but that which is worse than nothing, is well content to be annihilated. For why should such a temptation take any Christian? why should he desire clearer evidence? why should they seek for demonstration? or that the Resurrection of Christ should be made manifest to the eye? That is not to seek to confirm and establish, but to destroy their faith; for if these truths were as evident as it is that the sun doth shine when it is day, the apprehension of them were not an act of our faith, but of our knowledge; and therefore Christ, saith Tertullian, shown not himself openly to all the people at his Resurrection, ut fides non mediocri praemio destinata, 
Tert. Apol.  non nisi difficultate constaret, that faith, by which we are destined to a crown, might not consist without some difficulty, but commend itself by our obedience, the perfection and beauty whereof is best seen in making its way through difficulties: and so Hilary, Habet non tam veniam quàm praemium, 
Hil. l. 8. de Trin.  ignorare quod credis, not perfectly to know what thou certainly believest, doth so little stand in need of pardon, that it is that alone which draws on the reward. For what obedience can it be for me to assent to this, that the whole is greater than the part? that the Sun doth shine? or any of those truths which are visible to the eye? what obedience is it to assent to that which I cannot deny? but when the object is in part hidden, in part seen; when the truth we assent to, hath more probability to establish it, then can be brought to shake it, than our Saviour himself pronounceth, Blessed are they who have not seen, and yet have believed.  
Besides, it were in vain he should afford us more light who hath given us enough; for to him that will not rest in that which is enough, nothing is enough. When he reigned down Manna upon the Israelites; when he divided the red sea, & wrought wonders amongst them, the Text says, For all this they sinned still, and believed not his wondrous works. The Pharisees saw his miracles, yet would have stoned him; they saw him raise Lazarus from the dead, and would have killed them both. The people said, He hath done all things well; yet these were they that crucified the Lord of life. Did any of the Pharisees believe in him? we might ask, Did any of his Disciples believe in him? Christ himself calls them Fools and slow of heart to believe what the Prophets had foretold; their Fear had sullied the evidence, that they could not see it, the Text says they forsaken him and fled. And the reason of this is plain; For though faith be an act of the understanding, yet it depends upon the will, and men are incredulous, not for want of those means which may raise a faith, but for want of will to follow that light which leads unto it; do not believe because they will not, and so bear themselves strongly upon opinion preconceived, beyond the strength of all evidence whatsoever; when our affections and lusts are high and stand out against it, the evidence is put by and forgot, and the object, which calls for our eye and faith, gins to disappear and vanish, and at last is nothing; quot voluntates, tot fides, so many wills, 
Hilary.  so many Creeds; for there is no man that believes more than he will. To make this good, we may appeal to men of the slenderest observation, lest experience; we may appeal to our very eye, which cannot but see those uncertain and uneven motions, in which men are carried on in the course of their life. For what else is that that turns us about like the hand of a Dial, from one point to another? from one persuasion to a contrary? How comes it to pass that I now embrace what anon I tremble at? what is the reason that our Belief shifts so many Scenes, and presents itself in so many several shapes? now in the indifferency of a Laodicaean, anon in the violence of a Zealot? now in the gaudiness of Superstition, anon in the proud & scornful slovenry of factious Profaneness? that they make so painful a peregrination through so many modes and forms of Religion, and at last end in Atheist? what reason is there? there can be none but this, the prevalency and victory of our sensitive part over our reason, and the mutability, yea, and stubborness of our will, which cleaves to that which it will soon forsake, but is strongly set against the truth, which brings with it the fairest evidence, but not so pleasing to the sense. This is it which makes so many impressions in the mind: Self-love, and the love of the world, these frame our Creeds, these plant and build, these root and pull down, build up a Faith, and then beat it to the ground, and then set up another in its place. A double-minded man, saith S. James, is unstable in all his ways. Remember, 
2 Tim. 2.8.  saith S. Paul, that Jesus Christ of the seed of David was raised up from the dead, according to my Gospel; that is a sure foundation for our faith to build on, and there we have 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, fair and certain pledges of it, which are as a Commentary upon ego vivo, I live, or as so many beams of light to make it open and manifest to every eye; which give up so fair an evidence, that the malice of the Jew cannot avoid it. Let them say his Disciples stole him away, whilst their stout watchmen slept; what, stole him away? and whilst they slept? it is a dream, and yet it is not a dream, it is a studied lie, and doth so little shake, that it confirms our faith; so transparent, that through it we may behold more clearly the face of truth, which never shines brighter, than when a lie is drawn before it, to veil and shadow it. He is not here, he is risen, if an Angel had not spoken it, yet the Earthquake, the Clothes, the clothes so diligently wrapped up, the Grave itself did speak it; and where such strange impossibilities are brought in to colour and promote a lie, they help to confute it; id negant quod ostendunt, they deny what they affirm, and malice itself is made an argument for the truth. For it we have a better verdict given by Cephas, and the twelve: 1 Cor. 12.15. We have a cloud of witnesses, five hundred brethren at once, who would not make themselves the Fathers of a lie, to propagate that Gospel, which either makes our yea, yea, and nay, nay, or damns us; nor did they publish it to raise themselves in wealth and honour; for that teacheth them to contemn them, and makes poverty a beatitude, and shows them a sword, and persecution, which they were sure to meet with, and did afterwards in the prosecution of their office, and publication of that faith; nor could they take any delight in such a lie, which would gather so many clouds over their heads, and would at last dissolve in that bitterness, which would make life itself a punishment, and at last take it away; and how could they hope that men would ever believe that, which themselves knew to be a lie? These witnesses than 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, are many and beyond exception. We have the blood too, the testimony of the Martyrs, who took their death on't, and when they could not live to publish it, laid down their life, and sealed it with their blood. And therefore we, on whom the ends of the world are come, have no reason to complain of distance, or that we are removed so many ages from the time wherein it was done; for now Christ risen is become a more obvious object than before; the diversity of mediums have increased & multiplied it; we see him in his word, we see him through the blood of Martyrs, & we see him with the eye of faith; Christ is risen & alive, secundum scripturas, saith S. Paul, and he repeats it twice in the same chapter. Offenderunt Judaei in Christum lapidem (it is S. Augustine's, & let it pass for his sake) when the Jew stumbled at him he presented but the bigness of a stone, but our infidelity will find no excuse, if we see him not now, when he appears as visible as a mountain.  
Vivo, 
Vivo, that is, vivifico, I give life.  saith Christ, I am alive; there is more in this vivo than a bare rising to life, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, he liveth, is as much as he giveth life; there is virtue and power in his Resurrection, a power to abolish Death, 
2 Tim. 1.10.  and to bring life and immortality to light, a power to raise our vile bodies, and a power to raise our viler souls; shall raise them? nay, he hath done it already conresuscitati, we are risen together with him, and we live with him; for we cannot think that he that made such haste out of his own Grave, can be willing to see us rotting in ours. From this vivo it is, that though we die, yet we shall live again, Christ's living breathes life into us, and in his Resurrection he cast the model of ours; Idea est eorum quae fiunt exemplar aeternum, saith Seneca; and this is such a one, an eternal pattern for ours; Plato's Idea, or common form, by which he thought all things have their existence, is but a dream to this, this is a true and real, an efficacious, working pattern. For as an Artificer hath not lost his art, when he hath finished one piece, no more did Christ his power, when he had raised himself, which as he is, is everlasting, and it worketh still to the end of the world; perfectum est exemplar minùs perfecti, that which he wrought upon himself is most exact and perfect, a fit pattern of that which he means to work on us, which will be like to his indeed, but not so glorious.  
And now ego vivo, I live, is as loud to raise our hope, as the last trump will be to raise our bodies; and how shall they be able to hear the sound of the trump, who will not hear the voice of their Saviour? ego vivo, Christ life derives its virtue and influence on both; on the Body, with that power which is requisite to raise a body now putrified, and incinerated, and well near annihilated; and on the Soul, with such a power which is fitted to a soul, which hath both understanding and will, though drawn and carried away from their proper operations for which they were made: we do not read of any precept to bind us, or any counsel to persuade us to contribute any thing, or put a hand to the resurrection of our bodies, nor can there be, for it will to be done whether we will or no; but to awake from the pleasant sleep of sin, to be renewed and raised in the inward man, to die to sin, and be alive to righteousness, we have line upon line, and precept upon precept; and though this life of Christ work in us both the will and the deed, yet a necessary and a law lies upon us, and woe will be unto us, if we work not out our salvation. By his power we are raised in both, but not working after the same manner; there will be a change in both: as the flesh at the second, so the soul at this first resurrection must be reformata & Angelificata, must be spiritualised, refined, and angelified, or rather Christificata, if I may so speak, Christified, drawing in no breath but his, having the same mind which was in Christ Jesus. Whilst our bed is in the darkness, whilst corruption is our Father, and the worm our Mother and Sister, we cannot be said to be risen; and whilst all the alliance we have is with the world, whilst it is both Father, and Mother, and Sister to us; whilst we mind earthly things, we are still in our graves, nay in hell itself, Death hath dominion over us; for let us call the world what we please, our Habitation, our Delight, our Kingdom, where we would dwell for ever, yet indeed it is but our Grave: If we receive any influence from Christ's life, we shall rise fairly; not with a Mouth, which is a Sepulchre, but with a Tongue, which is our Glory; not with a withered hand, but with a hand stretched out to the needy; not with a gadding Eye, but an eye shut up by covenant not with an itching but with an obedient ear; not with a heart of stone, but with a heart after Gods own heart. Our life, saith the Apostle, 
Colos. 3.3.  is hid with Christ in God, and whilst we leave it there, by a continual meditation of his meritorious suffering, by a serious and practical application of his glorious Resurrection, we hid it in the bosom of Majesty, and no dart of Satan can reach it. When we hid it in the minerals of the earth, in the love of the world, he is the Prince of the world, and is there to seize on it; when we hid it in malicious and wanton thoughts, they are his baits to catch it; when we hid it in sloth and idleness, we hid it in a grave which he digged for us, we entomb ourselves alive, and as much as in us lies bury the Resurrection itself; but when we hid it in Christ, we hid it in him who carrieth healing and life in his wings; when we do per Christum Deum colere, worship God through Jesus Christ our Lord, and put our life in his hands, than the life of Christ is made manifest in our mortal flesh, 2 Cor. 2.4. than we have put off the old man, and in a manner put off our mortality, we are candidati aeternitatis, as Tertul. speaks, candidates for eternity, and stand for a place with Abraham and Isaac, for we have the same God, and he is not the God of the dead, but of the living.  
We see now what virtue and power there is in this vivo, 
Vivo in aeternum. I live for evermore.  in the life of Christ: But we must rise yet higher, even as high as eternity itself; for as he lives, so behold he lives for evermore; a Priest for ever, and a King for ever, 
Heb. 7.16.  being made not after the law of a carnal Commandment, after that law which was given to men, that one should succeed another, but after the power of an endless life, the Apostle calls it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a life that cannot be dissolved, that cannot part from the body. And thus, as he lives for evermore, so whatsoever issues from him is like himself, everlasting; the beams as lasting as the light, his Word endureth for ever; his Law is eternal, his Intercession eternal, his Punishments eternal, and his Reward eternal. Not a word which can fall to the ground, like ours who fall after it, and within a while breath out our souls as we do our words, and speak no more: Not laws which are framed and set to the times, and alter and change as they do, and at last end with them; but which shall stand fast for ever, aeterae ab aeterno, eternal as he is eternal; he hath spoken this once, and he will speak no more: not an Intercession which may be silenced with power, but imprinted in him, and inseparable from him, and so never ceasing; an Intercession which omnipotency itself cannot withstand; and his punishment not transitory, which time may mitigate or take away, but an everlasting worm; not a Reward which may be snatched out of our hands, but lasting as the Heavens, nay as Christ himself; and they who would contract and shrink it up in the one, and so make a temporary, perishing everlastingness, (which shall last as long as it lasts) do stretch beyond their line, which may reach the right hand, as well as the left, and put an end of the Reward, as they would do to the Punishment, for of the one, as well as of the other it is said, that it shall be everlasting; all that flows from him is like himself, yesterday, and to day, and the same for ever.  
And such an High Priest it became us to have, who was to live for ever; for what should we do with a mortal Saviour? or what can a mortal Saviour do for us? what could an arm of flesh, a withering, dying arm avail us? shadow us to day, and leave us to morrow, raise us up now, and within a while let us fall into the dust, and at last fall down and perish with us. Man is weak and dieth, man given up the ghost, and where is he? where is (I will not say Alexander or Caesar) but where is Moses, that led his people through the red sea? where are his laws? where is David? S. Peter speaks it freely, that he was both dead and buried, and that his Sepulchre was with them unto that day; but the son of David is ascended into Heaven, is our Priest for ever, and lives for evermore.  
And this title of eternity is wrought in his Girdle and Garment, may be seen in his Head and Eyes of fire, adorns his burning feet, is engraven on his sword, may be read in his countenance, and plaited in his crown, and doth well become his power, his wisdom, his justice, his goodness; for that which is not eternal is next to nothing; what power it that which sinks? what wisdom is that which fails? what riches are they that erish? what mercy is that which is as the morning dew, which soon falls, and is as soon exhaled and dried up again? Virtue were nothing, Religion were nothing, Faith itself were nothing, but in reference to eternity; Heaven were nothing, if it were not eternal; Eternity is that which makes every thing something, which makes every thing better than it is, and adds lustre to light itself; I live evermore, gives life unto all things. Eternity is a fathomless ocean, and it carries with it pow●r, and wisdom, and goodness, and an efficacious activity, a gracious and benevolent power, a wise and provident goodness; for if he live for evermore, then is he independent; if he be independent, then is he most powerful; and if he be most powerful, then is he blessed; and if be blessed, then is good: He is powerful, but good: good, but wise; and these, Goodness, and Care, and Wisdom, and a diligent care for us meet in him, who lives for evermore, and works on us for our eternal salvation.  
And first, as he lives for evermore, so he intercedes for us for evermore, and he can no more leave to intercede for us, than he can to be Christ; for his Priesthood must fail before his Intercession; because this power of helping us is everlastingly and inseparably inherent in him. St. Paul joins them together, his sitting at the right hand of God, and his interceding of us, Rom. 8.34. so that to leave interceding were to leave the right hand of God, where he looks down upon us, is present with us, and prepares a place for us; his Wounds are still open, his Merits are still vocal, his Sufferings are still importunate, his everlasting presenting of himself before his Father, is an everlasting prayer, Jesus at the right hand of the father, more powerful than the full vials, the incense, the prayers, the groans, the sighs, the roar of all the Saints that have been, or shall be to the end of the world; and if he sat not there, if he interceded not, they were but noise, nay, they were sins; but his intercession sanctifies them, and offers them up, and by him they are powerful; and by this power, the sighs, the breathing, the desires of mortal, fading men, ascend the highest heavens, and draw down eternity.  
And this is a part of his Priestly office, which he began here on earth, and continues for us, makes it complete, holds it up to the end of the world.  
Again, this title of eternity is annexed to his Regality, and is a flower of his Crown, not set in any but his; Thou art a King for ever, cannot be said to any mortal. Did he not live for evermore, he could not threaten eternal death nor promise everlasting life; for no mortal power can rage's for ever, but passeth, as lands do from one Lord to another, lies heavy on them, and at last sinks to the ground with them all; nor can the hand that must whither and fall off, reach forth a neverfailing reward; Infinitude cannot be the issue and product of that which is finite, and bounded within a determined period. And this might open a wide and effectual door unto sin, and but leave a sad and disconsolate entrance for Virtue and Piety, which is so unsatisfying to flesh and blood, that the perseverance in it requires no less a power, than that which Eternity brings along with it, to draw it on. How bold and daring would men be before the Sun and the People? what joy and delight would fill them, did not the thought of a future and endless estate pierce sometimes through them, and so make some vent to let it out? when the evil that hangs over them is but a cloud, which will soon vanish, few men are so serious as to look about and seek for shelter. Post mortem nihil est, Ipsaque mors nihil, there is nothing after death, and death itself is nothing; sets up a chair for the Atheist to sit at ease in, from whence he looks down upon those, who are such fools, as to be virtuous, and smiles to see them toil and sweat in such rugged and unpleasing ways, carried on with a fear on the one side, and a hope on the other, of that which will never be. And indeed, how weary, and how soon weary would men be of doing good, if there were not a lasting recompense, if they were not half persuaded (for a full persuasion is but rare) that there were something laid up in everlasting habitations? Honour, Repute, and Advantage, these may bring forth a Hypocrite, these may bind on the phylacteries on a Pharisee; but nothing can raise up a Saint, but eternity; nor can that which fleeteth and passeth away build us up in a holy faith: and then there would be no such ship as Faith, which might fear a wreck, 2 Tim. 1.19. no such anchor as Hope; our faith were vain, our hope were also vain, and we were left to be tossed up and down on the waves of uncertainty, having no haven to thrust into, but that which is as turbulent & uncertain as the sea itself, and with it ebbs and flows, and at last will ebb into nothing.  
But vivo in aeternum, I live for evermore, derives an eternity to that which in itself is fading, makes our actions which end in the doing of them, and are gone and passed, eternal; our words, which are but wind, eternal; and our thoughts which perish with us, eternal; for we shall meet them again, and feel the effect of them to all eternity: It makes Hell eternal, that we may fly from it; and Heaven eternal, that we may press towards it, and take it by violence. Christ's living for ever, eternizeth his threaten, and makes them terrible; his promises, and makes them persuasive and eloquent; eternizeth our faith and hope, eternizeth all that is praiseworthy, that they may be as a pass, or letters commendatory to prevail and procure us admittance into his presence, who only hath immortality, and can give eternal life. This is the virtue and operation of this vivo in aeternum, I live for evermore; for though a time will come when he shall not govern, and a time when he shall not intercede, yet the power of his Sceptre, the virtue of his Intercession is carried on along with the joy and happiness of the Saints, as the cause with the effect, even to all eternity, and shall have its operation in the midst of all our glorious ravishments, and shall tune our Halellujahs, our songs of Thanksgiving to this our Priest and King that lives for evermore. We pass now from the duration and continuance of his life, to his power. He hath the keys of Hell and of Death.  
Habeo claves, I have the keys, is a metaphorical speech; Et metaphorae feracissimae controversiarum, saith Martin Luther, Metaphors are a soil wherein controversies will grow up thick, and twine, and plate themselves one within the other, whilst every man manures them, and sows upon them what seed he please, even that which may bring forth such fruit, which may be most agreeable to his taste and humour. Lord what a noise have these keys made in the world? you would think they were not keys, but bells, sounding terror to some, and making others more bold and merry than they should be: Some have gilded them over, others have even worn and filled them quite away, put them into so many hands, that they have left none at all. For though they know not well what they are, yet every man takes courage enough to handle them, and let in, and let out whom they please; one faction turns them against another, the Lutheran against the Calvinist, and diabolifies him; and the Calvinist against the Lutheran, and superdiabolifies him. The Church of Rome made it a piece of wisdom to shut us out, and all that will not bow unto her, as subordinate and dependent on that Church; which was but idle physic, which did neither hurt nor good, but was as a dart sent after those who we gone out of reach; a curse denounced against those who heard it, and blest themselves in it; indeed a point of ridiculously affected gravity, such as that Church hath many: for what prejudice could come to us by her shutting us out, who had already put ourselves out of her Communion? unless you will think the valour of that Soldier fit for Chronicle, who cut off the head of a man who was dead before. I have the keys, saith Christ, and it is most necessary he should keep them in his hands; for we see how dangerous it may prove to put them into the hand of a mortal man, subject to passions, and too often guided and commanded by them; and we know what Tragedies the mistaking of the keys have raised in the world.  
And yet he that hath these keys, this power, hath delegated also a power to his Apostles, not only to preach the Gospel, but to correct those who disobey it. I would not attribute too much to the Pastors of the Church, in this dull and iron, or rather in this wanton age, where any thing, where nothing is thought too much for them, where all hath been preaching till all are Preachers; yet I cannot but think they have more than to speak in public, which, 'tis thought, every Christian may do. They are the Ambassadors of Christ, set apart on purpose in Christ's stead, to minister to his Church; nay, but to rule and govern his Church (it is S. Paul's phrase) and they carry about with them his commission, a power delegated from him to sever the Goats from the Sheep, even in this life, that they may become sheep (to segregate them, 
Abstin●r●. Cyp. Segregare, exauctorare, virgâ Pastorali serire. Hier. etc.  to abstain, or withhold them, to exauctorate them, to throw them out, to strike them with the pastoral rod, to anathematise them, etc. this was the language of the first and purest times) which by degrees fell in its esteem by some abuse of it, by being drawn down from that most profitable and necessary end for which it was given, which at last brought all Religion into disgrace: nor indeed could it be otherwise; for if upon the abuse of a thing we must strait call for the besom to sweep it away, what can stand long in its place? the Temple is profaned, that must down to the ground, Liberalty is abused, shut up your purse and your bowels together; Prayer is abused, and turned into babbling, tack up your tongues to the roof of your mouth; nay, every thing in the world is abused; if this argument be good, the world itself should long since have had its end. But such a power Christ did leave unto his Church, and the neglect of it on the one side, and the contempt of it on the other, hath brought in that lukewarmness, that indifferency amongst the professors of Christianity, which, if God prevent not, will at last shake and throw down the profession itself, and fill the world with Atheists, which will learn by no Masters but such as instruct fools, nor acknowledge any keys but those which may break their head.  
But indeed we have had these keys too long in our hands, for though they concern us, yet are they not the keys in the Text, nor had we looked upon them, but that those of the Romishparty, wheresoever they find the keys mentioned, take them up and hang them on their Church; But we must observe a difference betwixt the keys of the kingdom of Heaven, which were given to Peter, and the keys of Hell and of Death; although with them, when the keys are seen, Heaven and Hell are all one. For the keys of David, which opens and no man shuts, and shuts and no man opens, were not given to the Apostles, but are a regality and prerogative of Christ, who only hath power of life and death, over Hell and the Grave; who therefore calls himself the first and the last, because although when he first published his Gospel, he died and was buried, yet he risen again to live for ever, so to perfect the great work of our salvation, and by his power to bind those in everlasting chains who stood out against him, and to bring those that bow to his Sceptre out of prison into liberty, and everlasting life. The power is his alone, and he made it his by his sufferings (He was obedient to death, therefore God did highly exalt him) became a Lord by putting on the form of a servant; but he hath delegated a power to his Apostles, and those that succeed them, to make us capable, sit subjects for his power to work upon, which nevertheless will have its operation and effect; either let us out, ot shut us up for ever under the power of Hell and of Death: were not he alive and to live for evermore, we had been shut up in darkness and oblivion for ever; but Christ living infuseth life into us, that the bonds of Hell and of Death can no more hold us than they can him. There is such a place as Hell, but to the living members of Christ there is no such place; for it is impossible it should hold them, and you may as well place Lucifer at the right hand of God, as a true Christian in Hell: for how can light dewll in darkness? how can purity mix with stench? how can beauty stay with horror? If Nature could forget her course, and suffer contradictories to be drawn together, and to be both true, yet this is such a contradiction, which unless Christ could die again (which is impossible) can never be reconciled. Heaven and earth may pass away, but Christ lives for evermore, and the power and virtue of his life is as everlasting as everlastingness itself.  
And again, There was a pale Horse, 
Rev. 6.8.  and his name that sat on him was death, and he had power to kill with the sword, with hunger, and with the beasts of the Earth; but now he doth not kill us, he doth but stagger, and sling us down, to rise again and tread him under our feet, and by the power of an everliving Saviour to be the Death of death itself. Death was a king of terrors, and the Fear of death made us slaves, 
Heb. 2.15.  brought us into servility, and bondage all our life long, made our pleasures less delightful, and our virtues more tedious than they are, made us tremble, and shrink from those Heroic undertake for the truth of God; but now they in whom Christ lives, and moves, and hath his Being, as in his own, dare look upon him in all his horror, expeditum morti genus, saith Tertull: and are ready to meet him, in his most dreadful march, with all his Army of Diseases, racks, and Tortures; and as man before he sinned knew not what Death meant, and Eve familiarly conversed with the Serpent, so do they with death, and having that Image restored in them are secure and fear it not; for what can this Tyrant take from them? Their life? that is hid with Christ in God: It cannot cut them off from pleasure, for their delight is in the Lord: It cannot rob them of their treasure, for that is laid up in heaven: It can take nothing from them, but what themselves have already crucified, their Flesh: It cannot cut off one hope, one thought, one purpose; for all their thoughts, purposes and hopes were levelled not on this, but on another life. And now Christ hath his keys in his hand, Death is but a name, it is nothing, or if it be something, it is such a thing, that troubled S. Austin to define what it is: we call it a punishment, but indeed it is a benefit; a favour, even such a favour, that Christ who is as Omnipotent, as he is everlasting, who can work all in all, though he abolished the Law of Moses, the law of Ceremonies, yet would not abrogate this law, by which we are bound over unto death, because it is soprofitable and advantageous to us; it was threatened, it is now a promise, or the way unto it; for death it is, that lets us in that which was promised; it was an end of all, it is now the beginning of all; it was that, which cut off life, it is now that, through which, as through a gate, we enter into it; we may say, it is the first point and moment of our After-eternity, for 'tis so near unto it, that we can hardly sever them; for we live, or rather labour, and fight, and strive with the world, and with life itself (which is itself a temptation) and whilst by the power of our everliving Christ, we hold up and make good this glorious contention, and fight and conquer, and press forward towards the mark, either nature faileth, or is pressed down with violence, and we die, that is our language; but the spirit speaketh after another manner, we sleep, we are dissolved, we fall in pieces, our bodies from our souls, and we from our miseries and Temp●…tions; and this living, everliving Christ gathers us together again, breathes life and eternity unto us, that we may live and reign with him for evermore. And so I have viewed all the parts of the Text, being the main Articles of our faith, 1. Christ's death, 2. his life, 3. his eternal life; and last of all, his power of the keys; his Dominion over hell and death; we will but in a word fit the Ecce, the behold in the Text, to every part of it, and set the seal to it, Amen, and so conclude.  
And first, we place the Ecce the behold, on his death; he suffered and died, that he might learn to have compassion on thy miseries and on thy dust, and raise thee from both, and wilt thou learn nothing from his compassion? wilt thou not by him, and by thy own sins and miseries, which drew from him tears of Blood, learn to pity thyself? wilt thou still rejoice in that iniquity which troubled his spirit, which shed his blood, which he was willing should gush out of his heart, so it might melt thine, and work but this in thee to pity thyself? we talk of a first Conversion, and a second, and I know not what Cycles and Epicycles we have found out to salve our irregular motion in our ways to bliss; if we could once have compassion on ourselves, the work were done; and when were you converted? or how were you converted? were no such hard questions to be answered; for I may be sure I am converted, if I be sure that I truly pity myself; shall Christ only have compassion on thy soul? But then again, shall; he shed his blood for his Church, that it may be one with him and at unity in itself, and canst thou not drop a tear when thou seest this his body thus rend in pieces, as it is at this day? when thou seest the world, the love of the world break in and make such havoc in the Church, (oh 'tis a sad contemplation) will none but Christ weep over Jerusalem?  
Secondly, let us look upon him living, and not take our eye from off him, to fill and feed, and delight it with the vanities of this world; with that which hath neither life nor spirit; with that, which is so near to nothing; with that which is but an Idol? Behold he liveth, that which thou so dotest on, hath no life, nor can it prolong thy life a moment: who would not cease from man whose, breath is in his nostrils? and than what madness is it to trust in that which hath no breath at all? shall Christ present himself alive to us, and for us, and shall we lay hold of corruption & rottenness? and when heaven opens itself to receive us, run from it into a charnell-house, and so into hell itself?  
But then, in the third place, Behold he lives for evermore, and let not us bound and imprison our thoughts within a span, and when immortality is offered, affect no other life but that which is a vapour: Let us not raise that swarm of thoughts, which must perish, 
Colos. 3.3.  but build up those works upon our everliving Saviour which may follow us, follow us through the huge and unconceivable tract of eternity. Doth our Saviour live for evermore? and shall we have no spirit in us, but that which delights to walk about the earth, and is content to vanish with it? Eternity is a powerful motive to those who never have such pensive thoughts, as when they remember their frailty, and are sick even of health itself, and in a manner dead with life, when they consider it as that blessing which shall have an end. Eternity is in our desire, though it be beyond our apprehension; what he said of time, is truer of eternity, if you do not ask what it is, we know, but if you ask, we are not able to answer, and resolve you, or tell you what it is; when we call it an infinite duration, we do but give it another name, two words for one (a short Paraphrase) but we do not define what it is. And indeed our first conceptions of it are the fairest; for when they are doubled, and redoubled, they are lost in themselves, and the further they extend themselves, the more weary they are, and at greater loss in every proffer, and must end, and rest at last in this poor, unsatisfying thought, that we cannot think what it is. Yet there is in us a wild presage, an unhandsome acknowledgement of it, for we fancy it in those objects, which vanish out of sight, whilst we look upon them; we set it up in every desire, for our desires never have an end. Every purpose of ours, every action we do is Aeternitati sacrum, and we do it to eternity, we look upon riches as if they had no wings, and think our habitations shall endure for ever; we look upon honour, as if it were not Air, but some Angel confirmed, a thing bound up in eternity; we look upon beauty, and it is our heaven, and we are fixed and dwell on it, as if it would never shrivel, nor be gathered together as a scroll; and so in a manner make mortality itself eternal. And therefore since our desires do so far enlarge themselves, and our thoughts do so multiply, that they never have an end, since we look after that which we cannot see, and reach after that, which we cannot grasp, God hath set up that for an object to look on, which is eternal indeed, in the highest Heavens; and as he hath made us in his own image, so in Christ, who came to renew it in us, he hath showed us a more excellent way unto it, & taught us to work out eternity even in this world, in this common shop of change; to work it out of that in which it is not, which is near to nothing, which shall be nothing; to work it out of riches, by not trusting them; out of honour by contemning it; out of the pleasures of this world by loathing them; out of the flesh, by crucifying it; out of the world by overcoming it; and out of the Devil himself by treading him under our feet. For this is to be in Christ, and to be in Christ, is to be for evermore. Christ is the eternal Son of God, and he was dead, and lives, and lives for evermore, that we may die and live for evermore, and not only attain to the Resurrection of the dead, but to eternity.  
Last of all, let us look upon the keys in his hand, and knock hard, that he may open to us, and deliver our soul from hell, and make our grave not a prison, but a Bed to rise from to eternal life; or if we be still shut in, we ourselves have turned the key against ourselves; for Christ is ready with his keys to open to us; and we have our keys too; our key of knowledge to discern between Life and Death, and our key of Repentance, and when we use these, Christ is ready to put his, even into our hands, and will derive a power unto us mortals, unto us sinners, over hell and death.  
And then in the last place, we shall be able to set on the Seal, the Amen, & be confirmed in the certainty of his Resurrection and power; by which we may raise those thoughts, and promote those actions, which may look beyond our threescore years and ten, through all successive generations, to immortality, and that glory which shall never have an end. This is to show and publish our faith by our works, as S. James speaks, this is from the heart to believe it, as S. Paul; for he that thus believes it from the heart, cannot but be obedient to the Gospel, unless we can imagine there could be any man that should so hate himself, as thus deliberately to cast himself into, and to run from happiness, when it appears in so much glory: He cannot say Amen to life, who kills himself, for that which leaves as soul in the grave is not faith, but fancy; when we are told that honour cometh towards us, that some golden shower is ready to fall into our laps, that content and pleasure will ever be near, and wait upon us, how loud and hearty is our Amen? how do we set up an Assurance-office to ourselves? and yet that which seems to make its approach towards us, is as uncertain as uncertainty itself; and when we have it, passeth from us, and (as the ruder people say of the Devil) leaves a noisome and unsavoury scent behind it, and we look after it, and can see it no more: but when we are told that Christ liveth for evermore, and is coming, is certainly coming with reward and punishment, vox fancibus haeret, we can scarce say Amen, so be it. To the world, and pomp thereof we can say Amen, but to Heaven and Hell, to eternity we cannot say Amen, or if we do, we do but say it.  
For conclusion then: The best way is to draw the Ecce and the Amen, the Behold, and our assurance together, so to study the death and life, the eternal life and the power of our Saviour, that we may be such proficients as to be able with S. Paul 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, to meet the Resurrection, 
Phil. 3.11.  to look for and hasten the coming of the Lord, when his Life, and Eternity, and Power, shall shine gloriously, to the terror of those who persecute his Church, and to the comfort of those who suffer for Righteousness sake; when that Head which was a forge of mischief and cruelty, that Hand which touched the Lords Anointed, and did his Prophet's harm, shall burn in hell for ever; when that Eye which would not look on vanity, shall be filled with glory; that Ear which harkened to his voice, shall hear nothing but Hallebujahs, and the music of Angels; and that Head which was ready to be laid down for this living, everliving, powerful Lord, shall be lifted up, and crowned with glory and honour for evermore. Which God grant, etc.   

 blazon or royal coat of arms of England and Wales HONI ●…T QVI MAL Y PENSE  
A SERMON Preached on Whitsunday.  JOHN 16.13. 
Howbeit, when He the spirit of truth is come, he will lead you into all truth.  
WHen the spirit of truth is come, etc. and behold he is come already, and the Church of Christ in all ages hath set apart this day for a memorial of his coming; a memorial of that miraculous and unusual sound, that rushing wind, those cloven tongues of fire, And there is good reason for it, that it should be had in everlasting remembrance: For as he came then in solemn state upon the Disciples, in a manner seen & heard, so he comes, though not so visibly, yet effectually to us, upon whom the ends of the world are come, that we may remember it: though not it a mighty wind, yet he rattles our hearts together; though no house totter at his descent, yet the foundations of our souls are shaken; no fire appears, yet our breasts are inflamed; no cloven tongues, yet our hearts are cloven asunder; 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, every day to a Christian is a day of Pentecost; his whole life a continued holiday, wherein the Holy Ghost descends both as an Instructor and a Comforter, secretly and sweetly by his word characterizing the soul, imprinting that saving knowledge, which none of the Princes of this world had, not forcing, not drawing by violence, but sweetly leading, and guiding us into all truth. When He the spirit of truth is come, etc.  
In which words we have 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the Epiphany, or Apparition of the blessed Spirit, as Nazianzen speaks, or rather the promise of his coming and appearance; and if we well weigh it, there is great reason that the Spirit should have his Advent, as well as Christ his, that he should say, Lo I come, Psal. 40. For in the volume of the book it is written of him, that the spirit of the Lord should rest upon him, Es. 11.2. and I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh, Joel 2.28. Christus legis, Spiritus Sanctus Evangelii complementum, Christ's Advent for the fulfilling of the Law, and the Spirits for the fulfilling and completing of the Gospel; Christ's Advent to redeem the Church, and the Spirits Advent to teach the Church; Christ to shed his blood, and the Spirit to wash and purge it in his blood; Christ to pay down the ransom for us Captives, and the Spirit to work off our fetters; Christ to preach the acceptable year of the Lord, and the Spirit to interpret it, for we may soon see, that the one will little avail without the other; Christ's Birth, his Death, and Passion, Chists glorious Resurrection, but a story in Archivis, good news sealed up, a Gospel hid, till the Spirit come and open it, and teach us to know him, 
Phil. 3.10.  and the virtue and power of his Resurrection, and make us conformable to his death.  
This is the sum of these words, and in this we shall pass by these steps or degrees. First, carry our thoughts to the promise of the Spirits Advent, the miracle of this day, cùm venerit, when the spirit of truth comes; in a sound to awake them, in wind to move them, in fire to enlighten and warm them, in tongues to make them speak. Secondly, consider 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the work and employment of the Holy Ghost, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, he shall lead you into all truth.  
In the first we meet with 1. nomen personae, (if we may so speak) a word pointing out to his person, the demonstrative pronoun ille, when he shall come. 2. Nomen naturae, a name expressing his nature, he is a spirit of truth, and then we cannot be ignorant whose spirit it is.  
In the second we shall find Nomen officii, a name of office and administration, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is the word, from whence comes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a leader or conductor in the way, for so the Holy Ghost vouchsafed to be their leader and conductor, that they might not err, but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, keep on in a straight and even course in the way.  
And in this great office of the Holy Ghost, we must first take notice of the lesson he teacheth; it is Truth. Secondly, the large extent of this lesson, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, he leads into all truth. Thirdly, The method and manner of his discipline, which will nearly concern us to take notice of; it is ductus, a gentle and effectual leading; he drives us not, he draws us not by violence, but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is the word here; he takes, as it were, by the hand, and guides and leads us into all truth.  
Cùm venerit ille spiritus veritatis, When He the spirit of truth, etc.  
And first, though we are told by some, that where the article 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is added to foe, there we are to understand the person of the Holy Ghost, yet we rather lay hold on the pronoun 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ille, when he the spirit of truth shall come, he shall lead you; which points out to a distinct person: For if with Sabellius he had only meant some new motion in the Disciples hearts, or some effect of the Spirit, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 had been enough, but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He, designs a certain person; and ille he, in Christ's mouth, a distinct person from himself. Besides, we are taught in the Schools, Actiones sunt suppositorum, actions and operations are of persons; now in this verse Christ says that he shall lead them; and before he shall reprove the world; and in the precedent chapter he shall testify of me, which are proper and peculiar operations of the blessed Spirit, and bring him in a distinct person from the Father and the Son. And therefore S. Augustine rests upon this dark and general expression. The Holy Ghost communicates both of the Father and the Son, is something of them both, whatsoever we may call it; whether we call him the Consubstantial and coeternal communion and friendship of the Father and the Son; or with Gerson, and others of the Schools, Nexum Amorosum, the Essential Love, and Love-knot of the undivided Trinity.  
But we will wave these more abstruse and deeper speculations, in which, if we speak not in the Spirits language, we may sooner lose than profit ourselves, and speak more than we should, whilst we are busy to raise our thoughts and words up to that which is but enough: It will be safer walking below amongst those observations, which as they are more familiar and easy, so are they more useful, and take what oar we can find with ease, than to dig deeper in this dark mine, where if we walk not warily, we may meet with poisonous fogs and damps instead of treasure.  
We will therefore in the next place inquire why he is called the Spirit of Truth, for divers attributes he hath; he is called the Spirit of Adoption, Rom. 8.15. the Spirit of Faith, 2 Cor. 4.13. the Spirit of Grace, of Love, of Joy, of Zeal; for where he worketh, Grace is operative, our Love is without dissimulation; our Joy is like the joy of heaven, as true, though not so great; our Faith a working faith, and our Zeal a coal from the Altar, kindled from his fire; not mad and raging, but according to knowledge; he makes no shadows, but substances; no pictures but realities; no appearances but truths; a Grace that makes us highly favoured, a precious and holy Faith, full and unspeakable Love, ready to spend itself, and zeal to consume us; of a true existence, being from the spirit of God, who alone truly is: but here the spirit of Truth, yet the same spirit that planteth grace and faith in our hearts, that begets our Faith, cilates our Love, works our Joy, kindles our Zeal, and adopts us in Regiam familiam, into the Royal Family of the firstborn in Heaven: but now the spirit of Truth was more proper; for to tell men perplexed with doubts, that were ever and anon (and sometimes when they should not) ask questions of such a Teacher, was a seal to the promise, a good assurance they should be well taught, that no difficulty should be too hard, no knowledge too high, no mystery too dark and obscure for them, but Omnis veritas, all truth should be brought forth and unfolded to them, and have the veil taken from it, and be laid open and naked to their understanding.  
Let us then look up upon and worship this spirit of Truth, as he thus presents and tenders himself unto us, as he stands in opposition to two great enemies to Truth; as 1. Dissimulation, 2. Flattery; and then, as he is true in the lessons which he teacheth, that we may pray for his Advent, long for his coming, and so receive him when he comes.  
And first, dissemble he doth not, he cannot; for dissimulation is a kind of cheat, or juggling, by which we cast a mist before men's eyes, that they cannot see us; it brings in the Devil in Samuel's mantle, and an enemy in the smiles and smoothness of a friend; it speaks the language of the Priest at Delphos, plays in ambiguities, promises life, 
As to King 〈◊〉, who a 〈…〉 slew.  when death is nearest, and bids us beware of a chariot, when it means a sword, No, this spirit is an enemy to this, because a spirit of truth, and hates these in volucra dissimulationis, this folding and involvednesse, these cloaks and coverts, these crafty conveyances of our own desires to their end, under the specious show of intending good to others; and they by whom he speaks, are like him, and speak the truth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, 
2 Cor. 3.12.  in the simplicity and godly sincerity of the spirit, not in craftiness, not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, handling the Word of God deceitfully, 
2 Cor. 4.2. Eph. 4.14.  not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, not in the slight of men, throwing a Die, & what cast you would have them, noting their Doctrine to men and the times, that is, not to men and the times, but to their own ends, telling them of Heaven, 
Wisdom 1.5.  when their thoughts are in their purse. This holy spirit of Truth flies all such deceit, and removes himself far from the thoughts which are without understanding, and will not acquit a dissembler of his words; there is nothing of the Devil's method, nothing of the Die, or hand, no windings nor turn in what he teacheth, but verus vera dicit, being a spirit of truth, he speaks the truth, and nothing but he truth, and for our behoof and advantage, that we may believe it, and build upon it, and by his discipline raise ourselves up to that end, for which he is pleased to come and be our teacher.  
And as he cannot dissemble, so in the next place, flatter us he cannot; the inseparable mark and character of the evil spirit, qui arridet ut saeviat, who smiles upon us, that he may rage's against us, lifts us up that he may cast us down; whose exaltations are foils, whose favours are deceits, whose smiles and kisses are wounds; for flattery is as a glass for a fool to look upon, and so become more fool than before; it is the fools echo, by which he hears himself at the rebound, and thinks the wiseman spoke unto him; and it proceeds from the father of lies, not from the spirit of truth; who is the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever; who reproves drunkenness, though in a Noah; adultery, though in a David; want of faith, though in a Peter, and lays our sins in order before us: his precepts are plain, his law is in thunder, his threaten earnest and vehement; he calls Adam from behind the bush, strikes Ananias dead for his hypocrisy, and for lying to the holy Spirit deprives him of his own. Thy excuse to him is a libel, thy pretence fouler than thy sin; thy false worship of him is blasphemy, and thy form of godliness open impiety; and where he enters the heart, Sin (which is the greatest error, the grossest lie) removes itself, heaves and pants to go out, knocks at our breast, and runs down at our eyes, and we hear it speak in sighs and groans unspeakable, and what was our delight, becomes our torment. In a word, he is a spirit of truth, and neither dissembles, to deceive us, nor flatters, that we may deceive ourselves; but verus vera dicit, being truth itself, tells us what we shall find to be most true, to keep us from the dangerous by-paths of error and misprision, in which we may lose ourselves, and be lost for ever.  
And this appears, & is visible in those lessons and precepts which he gives, which are so harmonious, so consonant, so agreeing with themselves, and so consonant and agreeable to that Image after which we were made, to fit and beautify it when it is defaced, and repair it when it is decayed, that so it may become in some proportion: & measure like unto him that made it: for this spirit doth not set up one precept against another, nor one text against another; doth not disannul his promises in his threats, nor check his threats with his promises; doth not forbid all Fear in confidence, nor shake our confidence, when he bids us fear; doth not set up meekness to abate our zeal, nor kindles zeal to consume our meekness; doth not teach Christian liberty, to shake off obedience to Government, nor prescribes obedience, to infringe and weaken our Christian liberty. This spirit is a spirit of truth, and never different from himself, never contradicts himself, but is equal in all his ways; the same in that truth which pleaseth thee, and that which pincheth thee; in that which thou consentest to, and that which thou runnest from; in that which will raise thy spirit, and that, which will wound thy spirit: And the reason why men who talk so much of the spirit do fall into gross and pernicious errors, is from hence, that they will not be like the spirit in this, equal, and like unto themselves in all their ways; that they lay claim to him in that Text which seemeth to comply with their humour, but discharge, and leave him in that which should purge it; that upon the beck, as it were, of some place of Scripture, which upon the first face and appearance, looks favourably upon their present inclinations, they run violently on this side, animated and posted on by that which was not in the Text, but in their lusts and fancy, and never look back upon other testimonies of divine Authority, that Army of evidences, as Tertullian speaks, which are openly pressed out and marshaled against them, which might well put them to a halt and deliberation; which might stay and drive back their intention, and settle them at last in the truth, which consists in a moderation betwixt two extremes: For we may be zealous, and not cruel; we may be devout, and not superstitious; we may hate Idolatry, and not commit Sacrilege; we may stand fast in our Christian liberty, and not make it a cloak of maliciousness; if we did follow the spirit in all his ways, who in all his ways is a Spirit of truth; for he commandeth zeal, and forbids Rage; he commends devotion, and forbids superstition; he condemns Idolatry, yea, and condemns sacrilege; he preacheth liberty, and preacheth obedience to superiors, and in all is he same spirit.  
And this spirit did come, 
His Advent.  and Christ did send him; and in the next place, to this end he came, to be our leader, to guide us in the ways of truth, to help our infirmities, to be our conduct, to carry us on to the end; which is nomen officii, the name of his office, and Administration, which one would think, were but a low office for the spirit of God, and yet these are magnalia spiriûts, the wonderful things of the spirit, and do no less proclaim his divinity then the Creation of the world; we wonder the blind should see, the lame go, the deaf hear, the dead be raised up, but doth it not follow, pauperes Evangelizantur, 
Mat. 11.5.  the poor receive that Gospel? weigh it well, and in the Balance of the fanctuary, as great a miracle as the former.  
And this his Advent and coming was free and voluntary, and though he was sent from the Father, and the son, yet sponte venit, he came of his own accord, and he not only comes, but sends himself, say the schools, as he daily works those changes and alterations in his creature. These words to be sent, and to come, and the like, 
Dicit Mittam, ut propriam autoritatem oftendat; Tum denique veniet, quo verbo spiritûs potestas indicatur. Naz. Or. 37.  are not words of diminution or disparagement: He came in no servile manner, but as a Lord; as a friend, from a friend as in a letter, the very mind of him that sent it; which shows an agreement, and concord with him that sent him, but implies no inferiority, no degree of servility or subjection. Yet some there have been, who have stumbled at the shadow which this word hath cast, or indeed at their own, and for this made him no more than a Creature, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a supernumerary God, brought in to serve, and minister, and no distinct person of the blessed Trinity. But what a gross error, what foul ingratitude is this, to call his goodness servility? his coming to us, submission and obedience? and count him not a God, because by his gracious operation, he is pleased to dwell in men, and make them his Tabernacle? why may we not as warrantably conceive so of either person? For God (with reverence to so high a Majesty) serves us more than we do him, who are nothing, but by his breath and power; he serves us every day, nay, he Feedeth they young Ravens that call upon him. He knocks at our doors, he entreats, waits, suffers, commands us to serve one another, commands his Angels to serve, & minister unto us; res rationesque nostras curate, he keeps our Accounts numbers our tears, watcheth our prayers, in our misery in the deepest dungeon he is with us. And these are no disparagements, but Arguments of his excellency, and infinite goodness, and fair lessons to us, not to be wanting to ourselves, and our brethren, who have God himself thus carefully waiting upon us; and to remember us, that to serve our brethren, is to exalt and advance and raise us up to be like unto him. When we wash our brethren's feet, when we bind up their wounds, when we sit down in the dust with them, when we visit them in prison, and minister to them on their bed of sickness, we may think we debase ourselves, and do decrease as it were; but it is our honour, our Crown, our conformity to him, who was the servant of God, and our servant, and made himself like unto us, that he might serve us in his flesh, and doth so to the end of the world invisibly by his spirit. 'tis the spirit's honour to be sent, to be a leader, a conduct, and though sent he be, yet he is as free an Agent as the son, and the son as the Father. Tertullian calls him Christi vicarium, Christ's vicar here on earth to supply his place; but that argues no inequality, for then the son too must be unequal to the Father; for his Angel, his Messenger he was, and went about his father's business. And to conclude this; in a far remote, and more qualifyed sense we are his vicar's, his deputies, his Stewards here on earth, and 'tis no servility, 'tis our honour and glory to do his business to serve one another in love, to be Servants, to be Angels (I had almost said) to be holy Ghosts one to another? 
John 20.21.  As my Father sent me, saith our Saviour to his Disciples, so send I you, and he sends us too, who are Haereditarii Christi Discipuli, Christ's Disciples by inheritance and succession, that every one as he is endowed from above, should serve him, by serving one another; and though our serving him cannot deserve that name, yet is he pleased to call it helping him; that we should help him to feed the hungry, to guide the blind, and teach the ignorant, and so be the Spirits Vicars, as he is Christ's; that Christ may fill us more and more with his spirit, which may guide and conduct us through the manifold errors of this life, through darkness and confusion, into that truth which may lead us to bliss.  

The Spirits lesson.  For as he is a spirit of Truth, so in the next place, the lesson which he teacheth is Truth, even that truth, which is an Art, (Saint Austin calls it so) and a law to direct and confine all other Arts, quâ praeeunte seculi fluctus calcamus, which goes before us in our way, and through all the surges of this present world, brings us to the presence of God, who is truth is self; a truth, which leads us to our Original, to the Rock, out of which we were hewn, and brings us back to our God, who made us not for the vanities of this world, but for himself; an Art to cast down all babels, all towering and lofty imaginations, which present unto us falsehoods for truths, appearances for realities, plagues for peace; which scatter and divide our souls, pour them out upon variety of unlawful objects, which deceive us in the very nature, and end of things. For as this spirit brought life and immortality to light, 2 Time. 1.10. (for whatsoever the prophets and great Rabbis had spoken of immortality, was but darkness in comparison of this great light) so it also discovered the errors, and horror of those follies which we looked upon with love and admiration, as upon heaven itself. What a price doth luxury place on wealth and riches? what horror on nakedness and poverty? How doth a jewel glitter in my eyes, and what a slur is there upon virtue? what Glory doth the pomp of the world present, and what a sad and sullen aspect hath righteousness? How is God thrust out, and every Idol, every vanity made a God? but the truth here, which the spirit teacheth, discovers all, pulls off the veil, shows us the true countenance and face of things, that we may not be deceived; shows us vanity in riches, folly in honour, death and destruction in the pomp of this world; makes poverty a blessing, and misery happiness, and death itself a passage to eternity; placeth God in his Throne, and man where he should be, at his footstool, bowing before him, which is the readiest way to be lifted up unto him, and to be with him for evermore. In a word, a truth of power to unite us to our God, that brings with it the knowledge of Christ, the wisdom of God, which presents those precepts and doctrines which lead to happiness; a truth that goes along with us in all our ways, waits on us on our bed of sickness, leaves us not at our death, but follows us, and will rise again with us unto judgement, and there either acquit or condemn us, either be our Judge or Advocate. For if we make it our friend here, it shall then look lovely on us, and speak good things for us; but if we despise it, and put it under our basest desires and vile affections, it will then fight against us, and triumph over us, and tread us down into the lowest pit. Christ is not more gracious than this truth to them that love it; but to those who will not learn, shall be Tribulation and anguish; the Sun turned into Blood, the world on fire, the voice of the Archangel, the Trump of God, the severe countenance of the Judge will not be more terrible than this truth to them that have despised it. For Christ Jesus shall judge the secrets of the heart, acquit the just, condemn the impenitent, according to this truth which the spirit teacheth, according, saith Saint Paul, to my Gospel, Rom. 2.16.  

The large extent of this lesson.  This is the lesson, The spirit teacheth truth; let us now see the extent of it, which is large and universal; for the spirit doth not teach us by halves, doth not teach some truths and conceal others, but teacheth all truth, makes his disciples and followers free from all errors that are dangerous, and full of saving knowledge. For saving knowledge is all indeed, that truth which brings me to my end, is all, and there is nothing more to be known; I desired to know nothing but Christ and him crucified, saith S. Paul, 1 Cor. 2.2. here his desire hath a Non ultra; this truth is all, this joins heaven and earth together, God and man, mortality and immortality, misery and happiness in one, draws us near unto God, and makes us one with him. This is the Spirits lesson, Commentum Divinitatis, the invention of the divine Spirit, as faith is called the gift of God, not only because it is given to every believer, (and too many are too willing to stay till it be given) but because this spirit first found out the way to save us by so weak a means as Faith.  
And as he first found it out, so he teacheth it, and leaves out nothing, not a tittle, not an jota, which may serve to complete & perfect this Divine Science. In the book of God are all our members written; All the members? yea, and all the faculties of our soul; and in his Gospel, his Spirit hath framed rules and precepts to order and regulate them all in every act, in every motion, and inclination; which if the Eye offend, pluck it out, if the Hand, cut it off; which limit the understanding to the knowledge of God, which bind the will to obedience, and moderate & confine our Affections, levelly our hope, fix our joy, stint our sorrow, which frame our speech, compose our gesture, fashion our Apparel, set and methodise our outward behaviour. Instances in Scripture, in every particular, are many and obvious; and what should I more say; for the time would fail me to mention them all: In a word then, this truth, which the spirit teacheth, is fitted to the whole man, fitted to every member of the body, to every faculty of the soul, fitted to us in every condition, in every relation; it will reign with thee, it will serve with thee, it will manage thy riches, it will comfort thy poverty, ascend the throne with thee, and sit down with thee on the dunghill; it will pray with thee, it will fast with thee, it will labour with thee, it will rest and keep a Sabbath with thee; it will govern a Church, it will order thy Family; it will raise a kingdom within thee, it will be thy Angel to carry thee into Abraham's bosom, and set a crown of glory upon thy head. And is there yet any more? or what need more than that which is necessary? There can be but one God, one Heaven, one Religion, one way to blessedness, and there is but one Truth, and that is it which the Spirit teacheth; and this runs the whole compass of it, directs us not only ad ultimum, sed usque ad ultimum, not only to that which is the end, but to the means, to every step, and passage, and approach, to every help and advantage towards it, and so unites us to this one God, gives us right to this one Heaven, and brings us home to that one end for which we were made. And is there yet any more?  
Yes, particular cases may be so many and various, that they cannot all come within the compass of this truth, which the spirit hath plainly taught; 'tis true, but then, for the most part they are cases of our own making; cases which we need not make, cases sometimes raised by weakness, sometimes by wilfulness, sometimes even by sin itself, which reigns in our mortal bodies, and to such, this lesson of the Spirit is as an Axe to cut them, off. But be their Original what it will, if this truth reach them not, or if they bear no Analogy or affinity with that which the Spirit hath taught, nor depend upon it by any evident and necessary consequence, they are not to be reckoned in the number of those which concern us, because we are assured that he hath led us into all truth that is necessary. Some things indeed there are, which are indifferent in themselves, quae lex nec vetat nec jubet, which this Spirit neither commands not forbids, but are made necessary by reason of some circumstance of time, or place, or quality, or persons (for that which is necessary in itself, is always necessary) and yet are in their own nature indifferent still; veritas ad omnia occurrit, this truth (which is the spirits lesson) reacheth even these, and contains a rule certain and infallible, to guide us in them (if we become not laws unto ourselves, and fling it by) to wit, the rules of Charity and Christian prudence, to which if we give heed, it is impossible we should miscarry. It is the love of ourselves the love of the world, not charity, or spiritual wisdom, which make this noise abroad, which rend the Church in pieces, and work this desolation on the earth; it is the want of conscience, the neglect of conscience in the common and known ways of our duty, which have raised so many needless cases of conscience, which if mwn had not harkened to their lusts, had never shown their head; had been, what indeed they are, nothing: the acts of charity are manifest, 1 Cor. 13. She suffereth long, even injuries and errors, but doth not rise up against that which was set up to enlarge and improve her. Charity is not rash to beat down every thing that had its first rise and beginning from Charity; is not puffed up, swells not against a harmless, yea, and an useful constitution, though it be of man. Doth not behave itself unseemly, lays not a necessity upon us of not doing that which lawful authority even then styles an indifferent thing, when it commands it to be done. Charity seeketh not her own, treads not the public peace under foot, to procure her own; Charity is not provoked, checks not at every feather, nor startles at that monster, which is a creation of our own: Charity thinketh no evil, doth not see a Serpent under every leaf, nor Idolatry in every bow of Devotion; if we were charitable, we could not but be peaceable; if that which is the main of the Spirits lesson, did govern men's actions, there would be abundance of peace so long as the moon endureth. Multa facienda sunt non jubente lege, sed liberâ charitate, saith Austin, Charity is free to do, & suffer many things which the Spirit doth not expressly command, and yet doth command in general, when it commands and enjoins obedience to Authority, which hath no larger circuit to walk and show itself in, than in things in themselves indifferent, which it may enjoin for order's sake, and the advantage of those things which are necessary, which are already under a higher and more binding law, than any Potentate or Monarch of the earth can make. The acts, I say, of Charity are manifest, but those of Christian prudence are not particularly designed, 
Prudentia respicit ad siagularia.  because that eye is given us to view and consider particular occurrences and circumstances, and it depends upon those things which are without us; whereas Charity is an act of the will, and here, if we would be ourselves, or rather, if we would not be ourselves, but be free from by-respects, and unwarrantable ends, if we would divest ourselves of all hopes or fears of those things which may either shake, or raise our estates, we cannot be to seek. For how easy is it to a disengaged and willing mind to apply a general precept to particular actions? especially if Charity fill our hearts, which is the bond of perfection, and the end and compliment of the Law, which indeed is our spiritual wisdom? In a word, in these cases, when we go to consult with our reason, we cannot err, if we leave not Charity behind us; or if we should err, our charity would have such an influence upon our error, that it should trouble none but ourselves: for Charity beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.  
And this is the extent of the Spirits lesson; and if in other truths more subtle than necessary we are to seek, it matters not, for we need not seek them; for it is no sin not to know that which I cannot know, it is no sin to be no wiser than God hath made me; or what need our curiosity rove abroad, when that which is all, and alone concerns us, lies in so narrow a compass? In absoluto & facili aeternitas, 
Hil. de Trin.  saith Hilary, the way to heaven may seem rough and troublesome, but it is an easy way, easy to find out, though not so easy at our first onset to walk in, and yet to those that tread and trace it often, as delightful as Paradise itself. See, God hath shut up Eternity within the compass of two words, Believe and Repent, which is a full and just commentary on the Spirits lesson, the sum of all that he taught, lay your foundation right, and then build upon it; because God loved you in Christ, do you love him in Christ; love him and keep his commandments, than which no other way could have been found out to draw you near unto God. Believe and Repent, this is all. Oh wicked abomination, whence art thou come to cover the earth with deceit, with malice? what defiance, what contentention, what gall and bitterness amongst Christians? and yet this is all, Believe and Repent. The pen, the tongue, the sword, these are the weapons of our warfare. What ink, what blood hath been spilt in the cause of Religion? how many Innocents' defamed? how many Saints anathematised? how many millions cut down with the sword? yet this is all, Believe and Repent. We hear the noise of the whip, and the rattling of the wheels, and the prancing of the horses; the horseman lifteth up his bright spear and his glittering sword, Nah. 3.2,3. Every part of Christendom almost is a stage of war, and the pretence is written in their banners, (you may see it waving in the air) for God and Religion; and this is all, Believe and Repent. Who would once think the pillars of the earth should be thus shaken that the world should be turned into a worse Chaos than that out of which it was made? that there should be such wars and fightings amongst Christians, for that which is shut up and brought unto us in these two words, Believe and Repent? for all the truth, which is necessary, which will be sufficient to lift us to our end, and raise us to happiness, can make no larger a circumference than this; this is the Law and the Prophets, or rather, this is the Gospel of Christ; this is the whole will of God; in this is knowledge, justification, redemption and holiness; this is the Spirits lesson, and all other lessons are no lessons, not worth the learning, further than they help and improve us in this. In a word, this is all in all, and within this narrow compass we may walk out our span of time, and by the conduct of the same Spirit, in the end of it attain to that perfection and glory, which shall never have an end. And so from the lesson and extent of it, we pass to the manner and method of the spirits Teaching; it is not Raptus, a forcible and violent drawing, but ductus (〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is the word) a gentle leading, and guiding into all truth: Ducet vos, 
He shall lead you into all truth.   
And now we know our Teacher, and the Lesson, it will be good to know the method of this Discipline; The word is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, he shall lead you, which implies a capability, a preparedness, a willingness in them to be led; and the spirit that leadeth us, teacheth us also to follow him; not to resist him, that he may lead us; not to grieve him by our backwardness, that he may fill us with joy; not to quench him, that he may enlighten us; 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, 2 Tim. 1.6. to stir up his gifts, that they die not in us.  
Now this promise was directly and primarily made to the Apostles, whose Commission was extraordinary, even as large as the whole world, and therefore needed the spirits guidance in a more high and eminent manner; the gifts of Tongues, and diversities of graces, which might fit them for so great a work, that as their care, so their power might be as universal as the world. And yet to them it was given in measure, and where measure is, there are degrees, for they were lead by degrees, not straight to all truth, but by steps, and approaches. Saint Peter himself was not wrapped up as his pretended successor into the chair of truth, to determine all at once; for when pentecost was now past, he goes to Caesarea, and there learns more than he did at Jerusalem, sees that in the sheet which was let down to the earth, which he heard not from the Tongues, and of a truth now perceived what he did not before, Acts 10.34. that God was no accepter of persons, that now the partition-wall was broken down, that Jew and Gentile were both alike, and the Church, which was formerly shut up in Judea, was now become Catholic; a Body, which every one that would, might be a member of.  
Besides, though the Apostles were extraordinarily and miraculously inspired, yet we cannot say, they used no means at all to bring down the blessed Spirit; for 'tis plain, they did wait for his coming, they did pray for the truth, they did labour for the truth, they did confer one with another, met together in counsel, deliberated before they did determine; nor could they imagine they had the spirit in a string, and could command him as they please, and make him follow them whithersoever they were pleased to go. And then between us and the Apostles there is a main difference, nor can we expect an ocular and visible descent; and therefore if we will be taught by the spirit, we must use the means which the same spirit hath prescribed in those lessons which he first and extraordinarily taught the Apostles, and not make use of his name to misinterpret interpret those lessons which he taught, or bring in new of our own, and as new, so contrary to them; for what is new, must needs be contrary, because he then taught all truth, and what is more than all, is nothing; what is more than all truth must needs be a lie.  
Nor did he lead them into all truth for themselves alone, but for all those who should come after them, for all generations to the end of the world; he made them Apostles, sent them to make us Christians, to make that which he taught them, a rule of life, and to fix it on the Church as on a pillar, that all might read it, that none should add to it, or take away from it; and for this they are called a Foundation, Ephes. 2.20 and we are said to be built upon them (Jesus Christ being the head cornerstone) which we could not be, if their testimony were so scant and defective, that there were left a kind of necessity upon us to hue and square out what stones we please, and lay a new one of our own to cast down theirs, and bear up whatsoever our insolent and boundless lusts will lay upon it: And now what's become of my Text? for if this be admitted, we cannot say the spirit led them; for what leading is that, which leaves us so fare behind at such a distance from the end, that in every age he must come again, and take us by the hand, and draw us some other way, even contrary to that which he first made known? and what an all is that, to which every man may add what he please, even to the end of the world? for every man's claim and Title to the spirit is the same, as just & warrantable in any as in one; & when they speak contrary things, the evidence is the same, that is, none at all, unless this be a good Argument, he hath the spirit, because he says so; which is as strong on his side, that denies it upon the same pretence: Amongst the sons of men there are not greater fools than they, who have nothing to say for what they say, but that they say it, and yet think this nothing enough, and that all Israel are bound to hearken to them, as if God himself did speak.  
And this is an evil, a folly, a madness, which breathes no where but in Christendom, never heard of in any other body or society, but that of Christians; for though many Governors of Commonwealths did pretend to a kind of commerce and familiarity with some God, or Goddess, when they were to make a law; yet we do not read of any (as fare as I remember) that did put up the same pretence, that they might break it; but when the law was once promulged, there was nothing thought of, but obedience, or punishment. But Christians who have the best Religion, have most abused it, have played the wantoness in that light in which they should have walked with fear and trembling; and finding themselves at loss, finding no satisfaction to their pride and ambition, to their malice, and lusts, from any lesson the Spirit hath yet taught, have learned an Art to suborn something of their own to supply that defect, and call it a Dictate of the spirit. Nor was this evil of yesterday, or which befell the weakest only; for the Devil hath made use of it in all ages, as of the fittest Engine to undermine that truth which the spirit first taught. Tertullian as wise a man as the Church then had, being not able to prove the Corporiety of the soul by scripture, flies to private Revelation in his Book De anima non per aestimationem, sed Revelationem; what he could not uphold by reason and judgement, 
Post joannem quoque prophetiam meruimus conscqui, etc. Tertull. de Anim, c. ix. montanizans.  he strives to make good by Revelation; for we, saith he, have our Revelations as well as Saint John: Our sister Priscilla hath plenty of them; her trances in the Church; she converses with Angels, and with God himself, and can discern the hearts and inward thoughts of men. Saint Hierome mentions others, and in the days of our forefathers Calvin many more, 
Calvin. contra Libert.  who applied the name of the spirit to every thing that might facilitate and help on their design, as parish priests (it is his resemblance) would give the name of six or seven several Saints to one image, that their offerings might be the more. I need not go so fare back for instance. Our present age hath shown us many who have been ignorant, yet wiser than their Teachers, so spiritual, that they despise the word of God, which is the dictate of the spirit (for this monster hath made a large stride from foreign parts, and set his foot in our coasts) If they murder, the spirit moved their hand, and drew their sword; if they throw down Churches, it is with the breath of the Spirit; if they would bring in parity, the pretence is, the Spirit cannot endure that any should be supreme, or Pope it but themselves; our humour, our madness, our malice, our violence, our implacable bitterness, our railing and reviling must all go for inspirations of the spirit; Simeon and Levi, Absalon and Achitophel, Theudas and Judas, the Pharisees and Ananias, they that despise the holy Spirit of God, these Scarabees bred in the dung of sensuality, these Impostors, these men of Belial must be taken no longer for a generation of vipers, but for the scholars and friends of the holy Ghost; whatsoever they do, whithersoever they go, He is their leader, though it be to hell it .  
May we not make a stand now, and put it to the question, whether there be any holy Ghost, or no? and if there be, whether his office be to lead us? Indeed these appropriations, these bold and violent engrossings of the blessed Spirit have, I fear, given growth to conceits well near as dangerous, that the spirit doth not spirare, breathes no grace into us, that we need not call upon him; that the text which telleth us, the holy Ghost leadeth, is the holy Ghost that leads us; that the letter is the spirit, and the spirit the letter; an adulterate piece new coined, an old Heresy brought in a new dress and tyre upon the stage again; that he is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a strange unheard of Deity, and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, an ascriptitious and supernumerary God; 
Nazianz Or. 37. Quis veterum vel recentium adoravit spiritum? quis oravit? etc. sic Macedonianis, & Eunomiani, Ibid.  I might say that it is more dangerous than this: for to confess the Spirit, and abuse him, to draw him to as an accessary and abettor, nay as a principal, in those actions which nature itself abhors and trembles at, is worse than out of error to deny him. For what a Spirit, what a Dove is that which breathes nothing but gall and wormwood? but fire and brimstone? what a Spirit is that, which is ever pleading and purveying for the flesh? what a Spirit is that which is made to bear witness to a lie? for as Petrarch tells us, Nihil importunius erudito stulto, that there is not a more troublesome creature in the world, than a learned fool; so the Church of Christ and Religion never suffered more than by carnal men, who are thus spirit-wise; for by acknowledging the Spirit, and making use of his name, they assume unto themselves a licence to do what they please, and work wickedness, not only with greediness, but cum privilegie, with privilege and authority; which whilst others doubt of, though it be not only an Error, but Blasphemy, yet parciùs insaniunt, they are not so outrageously made.  
But yet we must not put the spirit from his office, because dreams, or rather the evaporations, of men's lusts do pass for revelations; or say he is not a leader into truth, because wicked or fanatic persons walk on in the ways of Error, in the ways of Cain, or Corah, and yet are bold to tell the world, that this spirit goes before them. The mad Athenian took every ship that came into the harbour to be his, but it doth not follow hence that no wise and sober merchant knew his own. To him that is drunk things appear in a double shape and proportion, Geminae Thehae, & geminy soles, two cities, and two suns for one; but I cannot hence conclude that all sober men do so, nor can I deny the Spirits conduct, because some men wander as they please, and run on in those dangerous by-paths, where he will not lead them: this were to deny an unquestionable and fundamental truth; for an inconvenience to dig up the foundation; because men build hay and stubble upon it, or because some men have sore eyes, to pluck the Sun out of its sphere. It were indeed dangerous to teach, that the spirit did teach and lead us, were there not means to try and distinguish the Spirits instructions from the suggestions of Satan, or those 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, those misshapen lumps and abortive births of a sick and loathsome brain, or our private humour, which is as great a Devil. Beloved, 
1. Epist. of St. John, c. 4. v. 1, 2.  saith S. Joh. believe not every spirit, that is, every inspiration, but try the spirits, whether they be of God, for many false Prophets are gone out into the world, that is, have taken the chair, and dictate magisterially what they please, in the name of the Spirit, when themselves are carnal. And he gives the rule by which we should try them in the next verse, Every spirit that confesseth Jesus is the Lord, is of God, that is, whosoever strives to advance the Kingdom of Christ, and to set up the spirit against he flesh, to magnify the Gospel, to promote men in the ways of innocency, & perfect obedience, which infallibly lead to happiness, is from God; every such inspiration is from the spirit of God; for therefore doth the spirit breath upon us, that he may make us like unto God, and so draw us to him, that where he is we may be also. But then those inspirations which bring in God to plead for Baal, which cry up Religion to gain the world, which tread down peace and charity, and all that is praiseworthy under feet, to make way for men's unruly lust, to place it more delicately to its end; they that magnify Gods will, that they may do their own; these men, these spirits cannot be from God: By their fruits you shall know them. For their hypocrisy, as well and cunningly wrought as it is, is but a poor cob-web-lawn, and we may easily see through it, even see these spiritual men sweeting and toiling for the flesh, these spirits digging in the minerals, and making haste to be rich: for though Gloria Patri, Glory be to God on High, he the Prologue to the Play, (for what doth an hypocrite but play?) yet the whole drift, the business of every Scene and Act is to draw and conclude all in this, From hence we have our gain. The Angel or the Spirit speaks first, and is the Prologue and Mammon, and the Flesh make up the Epilogue. Date manus, why should not every man clap his hands; surely such Roscii, such nimble cunning actors deserve a plaudite, By their fruits you shall know them; what spirit soever they have it is not of God; for nothing more contrary to the flesh than this spirit, and therefore he cannot lead this way, nor can he teach any thing that may flatter or countenance it; there is nothing more against his nature than this; fire may descend, and the earth may be removed out of its place; nature may change her course at the word and beck of the God of nature; but this is one thing which God cannot do, he cannot change himself, nor can his spirit breathe any doctrine forth which savours of the world, of the flesh, or corruption; and therefore we may, nay we must suspect all those doctrines and actions, which are said to be the effects and products of the blessed spirit, when we observe them drawn out and leveled to carnal ends, and temporal respects; for sure the spirit can never beat a bargain for the world, and the truth of God is the most unproportioned price that can be laid out on such a purchase. When I see a man roll his eyes, compose his countenance, order and methodise his gesture, as if he were now on his deathbed, to take his leave of the world; when I hear him loud in Prayer, and as loud in reviling the iniquity of the times; when I see him startle at a misplaced word, as if it were a thunderbolt; when I hear him cry as loud for a reformation as the Idolatrous Priests did upon Baal, I begin to think I see an Angel in his flight and mount, going up into heaven; but then after all this extaticall devotion, after all this zeal, and in the midst of all this noise wherein I see him stoop like the vulture, and fly like lightning to the prey, I cannot but say within myself, Oh Lucifer, son of the morning, how art thou fallen from heaven? how art thou brought down to the ground, nay to hell itself? sure I am the spirit of truth looks upward, moves upward, directs upward to those things which are above; and if we follow him, neither our doctrine nor our actions will ever savour of this dung.  
So then, we see this inconvenience and mischief, which sometimes is occasioned by this doctrine of the Spirits leading, is not unavoidable; it is not necessary, though I mistake, and take the Devil for an Angel of light, that the holy Ghost should be put to silence; though Corah and his complices perish in their gainsayings, yet God forbidden that all Israel should be swallowed up on the same gulf. In the third of the first of Samuel, Samuel runs to Eli, when the voice was Gods, but was taught at last to answer, Speak Lord, for thy servant heareth; though there be many false Prophets, yet Micaiah was a true one; and though there be many false Teachers come into the world, yet the spirit of God is a spirit of Truth, & ducet nos, and he shall lead us into all truth.  
And that we may follow as he leads, we must observe the ways in which he moves; for as there is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a way of peace, Luk. 1.79. so there are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the ways of truth, and in those ways the spirit will lead us. I may be in viis iniquitatis, in the ways of wickedness, in the ways of the Gentiles, and profane men, in viis meis, in my own ways, in those ways which my fancy and lust hath chalked out; on that pinnacle and height where my ambition hath placed me; in that mine and pit where my covetousness hath buried me alive; and in these I walk with my face from Jerusalem, from the truth, and in these he leads us not. How can he learn poverty of spirit, who hath no God but Mammon, and knows no sin but poverty? How can he be brought down to obedience and humility, who with diotrephes in S. John loves to have pre-eminence, and thinks himself nothing, till he is taller than his fellows by the head and shoulders? how can he hearken to the truth who studies lies? and do we now wonder why we are not taught the truth, where the Spirit keeps open school? there is no wonder at all; the reason why we are not taught, is because we will not learn. Ambition soars to the highest seat, and the Spirit directs us to the ground, to the lowest place; the love of the world doth fill our barns, and the Spirit points to the bellies of the poor, as the better and safer garners; my private factious humour tramples under foot obedience to superiors, because I myself would be the highest, and challenge that as my peculiar, which I deny to others; but this spirit prescribes order. Doth Montanus lead about silly women, and prophecy? doth he call his dreams revelations? Eusebius tells us, that the Spirit which led him about was nothing else but an inseparable desire of precedency. 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. l. 1. c. 21. Tert. coat. Valent. c. 4.  Doth Valentinus number up his Aeones and as many crimes as gods? Tertullian informs us that he hoped for a Bishopric, but fell from those hopes, and was disappointed by one who was raised to that dignity by the prerogative of Martyrdom, and his many sufferings for the truth. Doth Arrius deny the divinity of the Son? read Theodoret, and he will show you Alexander in the chair before him. 
Theod. l. 1. c. 2.  Doth Aerius deny there is any difference between a Bishop and Presbyter? the reason was, he was denied himself, and could not be one; so that he fell from a Bishopric as Lucifer did from Heaven, whose first wish was to be God, and whose next was that there were no God at all. From hence these stirs and tumults in the Church of Christ, from hence these storms and tempests, which blow and beat in her face; from hence these distractions and uncertainties in Christian Religion, that it is a matter of some danger but to mention it; which made Nazianzen (in some passion as it may seem) cry out 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, etc. I would, saith he, 
Naz. Or. 20.  there were no precedency, no priority, no dignities in the Church, but that men's estimation did only rise from virtue; but now the right hand and the left, the higher and the lower place, these terms of difference have led men not into the truth, but into that ditch where Error mudds itself. Caeca avaritia, saith Maximus, covetousness and ambition are blind, and cannot look upon the truth, though she be as manifest as the sun at noon; and it fares with men in the lust of their eyes, in the love of the world, as it did with the man in Artemidorus, who dreamt he had eyes of gold, and the next day lost them, had them both put out; for now no smell is sweet but that of lucre, no sight delightful but of the wedge of gold; and so by a strange kind of Chemistry they turn Religion into Gold, and even by Scripture itself heap up Riches, and so they lose their sight and judgement, and savour not the things of God, but are stark blind to that truth which should save them.  
But now grant, that they were indeed persuaded of the truth of that which they defend with so much noise and tumult, yet this may be but opinion and fancy, which the love of the world will soon build up, because it helps to nourish it; and how can we think that the spirit did lead them in those ways, in which self love and desire of gain did drive on so furiously? for sure the spirit of truth cannot work in that building, where such Sanballats laugh him to scorn. Now all these are the very cords of vanity, by which we are drawn from the truth, and must be broken asunder, before the spirit will lead us to it; for he leads us not over the Mountains, nor through the bowels of the Earth, nor through the numerous Atoms of our vain and uncertain and perplexed imaginations, but as the wisdom which he teacheth, so is the method of his Discipline, pure, peaceable, 
Jam. 3.17.  and gentle, without partiality, without hypocrisy, and hath no savour or relish of the Earth; for he leads the pure, he leads the peaceable, he leads the humble. In a word, he leads those who are lovers of peace and truth.  

Conclus.  And now to draw towards aconclusion: will you know the ways in which the Spirit walks, and by which he leads us? will you know the rules we must observe, if we will be the Spirits Scholars? I will be bold to give them you from one who was a great lover of truth, even Galen the Physician: I can but name them, for the time will not suffer me to insist; they are but four, the first, is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a love of Truth; the second, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a love of Industry, a frequent meditation of the truth; the third is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, an orderly and methodical proceeding in the pursuit of Truth; the last is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, exercitation, and our conformity to the truth in our conversation: And this gold, though it be brought from Ophir, yet may it be useful to adorn and beautify those who are the living temples of the holy Ghost.  
And first, Love is a passion imprinted in us to this end, to urge and carry us forward to the truth, and it is the first of all the passions, the first of all the operations of the soul, the first mover, as it were, being a strong propension to that we love, and which is fitted and proportioned to the mind, seeking out the means, and working forward with all the heat of intention unto the end; eminent among the affections, calling up my fear, my hope, my anger, my sorrow; my fear of not finding out, yet in the midst of fear raising a hope to attain to it; my sorrow that I find not so soon as I would; and my anger at any thing that is averse or contrary, at any cloud or difficulty that is placed between me and the truth. The love of Christ, saith S. Paul, constraineth me, 2 Cor. 5.14. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 (a resemblance taken from women in travel) constraineth, urgeth me, worketh in me such a desire, as the pain in travel doth in a woman to be dlivered; for do we not labour and travel with a conclusion, which we would find out? and what joy is there, when we have? like that of a woman in travel, when a manchild is brought into the world. If you love me, keep my commandment, 
John 14.15.  saith Christ; if you love me not, you cannot, but if you love me you will certainly keep them.  
Will you know the reason why the ways of truth are so desolate? why so little truth is known, when all offers itself, and is even importunate with us to receive it? there can be no other reason given but this, that our hearts are congealed, our spirits frozen, and we are coldly affected to the truth, nay are averse and turn from it; this truth crosseth our profit, that our pleasure; other truths stand in our light, & obstruct our passage to that we most desire. S. Paul speaks plainly, If the truth be hid, it is hid to them that perish, 
2 Cor. 4.3,4.  in whom the God of this world hath foe blinded their mind, that the light of this truth should not shane upon them; for if we have eyes to see her, she is a fair object, as visible as the Sun; if we do but love the truth, the spirit of truth is ready to take us by the hand and lead us to it; but those that withdraw themselves doth his soul hate.  
Now in the next place, this love of truth brings in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a love of Industry, for if we love it, it will be always in our thoughts, and we shall meditate of it day and night; for to love seven years are but a few days, and great burdens are but small, and labour is but pleasure, and we walk in the region of truth, viewing it, and delighting in it, gathering what may be for our use; we walk in it as in a Paradise. Truth is best bought when it costs us most, and must be wooed oft and seriously, and with great devotion; as Pythagoras said of the gods, Non est salutanda in transitu, is not to be spoken with in the By and passage, is not content with a glance and slutation, and no more; but we must behold it with care and anxiety, we must make a kind of peregrination out of ourselves, and must run and sweat to meet it, and then this spirit leads us to it. And this great encouragement we have, that in this our labour we never fail of the end we labour for; which we cannot find in our other endeavours and attempts, in which we have nothing to uphold us under those burdens which we lay upon our own shoulders, but a deceitful hope, which carries us along to see itself defeated, the frustration whereof is a greater penalty and vexation than that which we undertook for its sake. How many rise up early to be rich, and before their day shuts up are beggars? how many climb to the highest place, and when they are near it, and ready to fit down, fall back into a prison? But in this we never fail, the Spirit working with us, and blessing the work of our hands, making our busy and careful thoughts as his chariot, and then filling us with light; such is the privilege and prerogative of Industry, such is the nature of Truth, that it will be wrought out by it; nor did ever any rise up early, and in good earnest travel towards it, but this spirit took him by the hand and brought him to his journey's end. If thou seekest her as silver, 
Prov. 2.4,5.  if thou search for her as for had treasure (which because it is hid we remove many things, turn up much earth, and labour hard, that we may come to it) then shalt thou understand the fear of the Lord, and find the knowledge of God; in which work our industry and the Spirits help are as it were joined and linked together.  
You will say perhaps, that the Spirit is an omnipotent Agent, and can fall suddenly upon us, as he did upon the Apostles this day; that he can lead us in the way of truth, though we sit still, though our feet be chained, though we have no feet at all; but the Proverb will answer you; 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  
If God will you may sail over the sea in a sieve; but we must remember the Spirit leads us according to his own will and counsel, not ours; that as he is an Omnipotent, so he is a free Agent also, and worketh, and dispenceth all things according to the pleasure of his will; and certainly he will not lead thee, if thou wilt not follow; he will not teach thee, if thou wilt not learn; nor can we think that the truth which must make us happy is of so easy purchase, that it will be sown in any ground, and as the Devil's tares grow up in us, Nobis dormientibus, whilst we sleep.  
The third is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, method, or an orderly proceeding in the ways of truth; for as in all other Arts and Sciences, so in our spiritual wisdom, and in the school of Christ, we may not hand over head huddle up matters as we please, but must 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, keep an order and set course in our studies and proceed: our Saviour Christ hath a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, 
Mat. 6.33.  seek first the kingdom of God, and in that kingdom every thing in its order; there is something first, and something next to be observed, and every thing is to be ranked in its proper place: the Author of the Epistle to the Hebrews tells us of principles of Doctrine which must be learned before we can be led forward to perfection; 
Heb. 5.13,14.  of milk, and of strong meat; of plainer Lessons before we reach at higher Mysteries; nor can we hope to make a good Christian, veluti ex luto statuam, as soon as we can make a picture, or a statue out of clay. Most Christians are perfect too soon, which is the reason that they are never perfect; they are spiritual in the twinkling of an eye (they know not how, nor no man else) they leap over all their alphabet, and are at their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, their end, before they begin; are at the top of the ladder before they have set a foot to the first step or rown; they study heaven, but not the way to it; they study faith, but not good works; repentance without a change or restitution; Religion without order; they are as high as God's closet in heaven, when they should be busy at his footstool; study predestination, but not sanctity of life; study assurance, but not that piety which should work it; study heaven and not grace, and grace but not their duty; and now no marvel if they meet not with that saving truth in this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, in this so great disorder and confusion; no marvel when we have broke the rules and order, & not observed the method of the Spirit, if the Spirit lead us not, who is a Spirit that loveth order, and in a right method and orderly course leads us into the truth.  
The last is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, exercitation and practice of the truths we learn, which is so proper and necessary for a Christian, that Christian Religion goes under that name, and is called an exercise by Clem. 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Strom. l. 4.  Al. Nyssen, Cyril of Ilierusalem, and others; and though they who lead a Monastical life have laid claim to it as their own (they were called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉) yet it may well belong to every one that is the Spirits Scholar, who is as a Monk in the world, shut up out of it, even while he is in it, exercising himself in those lessons which the Spirit teacheth, and following as he leads, which is to make the world itself his monastery. A good Chritian is the true 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, 
Epictet. Arrian. l. 3. c. 5.  and by this daily exercise in the doctrines of the Spirit, he doth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, as the Stoics speak, drive the truth home, and make it enter into the soul and spirit; for as Auaxagoras said well, manus causa sapientiae, 'tis not the brain, but the hand that causeth knowledge, 
Talis quisque est qualibue delectater; inter artisicem & artificium mira cognatio est.  and worketh wisdom: for true wisdom, that which the Spirit teacheth, consists not in being a good Critic, or in rightly judging of the sense of the words, or being a good Logician in drawing out a true and perfect definition of Faith and Charity, or discoursing aptly and methodically of the Lessons of the Spirit; or in being a good Orator, in setting out the beauty and lustre of Religion to the very eye. No, saith the son of Syrach, He that hath no experience knoweth little, 
Ecclus. 34.10.  Ex mandato mandatum cernimus, by practising the command we gain a kind of familiarity, a more inward and certain knowledge of it; If any man will do the will of God, he shall know the Doctrine; 
Joh. 7.17.  in Divinity, and indeed in all knowledge whose end is practice, that of Aristotle is true, Those things we learn to do we learn by doing them; we learn devotion by prayer; charity, by giving of alms; meekness, by forgiving injuries; humility and patience, by suffering; temperance, by every day fight against our lusts; as we know meat by the taste, so do we the things of God by practice and experience, and at last discover heaven itself in piety; and this is that which S. Paul calls knowledge according to godliness; 
1 Tim. 6.3.  we taste and see how gracious the Lord is, we do as it were see with our eyes, and with our hands handle the word of truth. In a word, we manifest the truth, and make it visible in our actions; and the Spirit is with us, and ready in his office to lead us further, even to the inner house; and secret closet of truth, displays his beams of light, as we press forward and mend our pace, every day shining upon us with more brightness, as we every day strive to increase; teaching us not so much by words as by actions and practice, by the practice of those virtues which are his lessons, and our duties; we learn that we may practise, and by practice we become as David speaks, 
Psal. 119.99.  wiser than our teachers. to conclude, day unto day teacheth knowledge, and every act of piety is apt to promote and produce a second, to beget more light, which may yet lead into more, which may at last strengthen & establish us in the truth, and so lead us from truth to truth, to that happy estate which hath no shadow of falsehood, but like the Spirit of Truth endureth for evermore.    


THE FIRST SERMON.  JAMES I. Verse. ult. 
Pure Religion and undefiled before God and the Father is This, to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the World.  
NOthing more talked of in the world, than Religion, nothing less understood, nothing more neglected, there being nothing more common with men, then to be willing to mistake their way; to withdraw themselves from that, which is indeed Religion, because it stands in opposition to some pleasing error, which they are not willing to shake off, and by the help of an unsanctified, complying fancy, 
Multi sibi fidem ipsi potiut constitunut, quam accipiunt, dum quae velunt sapiunt, & nolunt sapepere quae vera sunt, cum sapientiae haecveritas sit, ea interdum sapere, quae nolis. Hilar. 8. de Trin. V. 22.  to frame one of their own, and call it by that name. That which flatters their corrupt hearts, That which is moulded and attempered to their brutish desigus, That which smiles upon them in all their purposes, which favours them in their unwarrantable undertake, That which bids them Go on and prosper in the ways which lead unto death, That with them is True Religion.  
In this Chapter, and indeed in every Chapter of this Epistle, our Apostle hath made this discovery to our hands: Some there were, as he observes, that placed it in the ear; did hear and not do: and rested in that: some did place it in a formal devotion: did pray, but pray amiss, and therefore did not receive: some that placed it in a shadow and appearance, 
Verse 25.  seemed to be very religious, but could not bridle their tongue, and were safe they thought under this shadow: others there were, that were partial to themselves, despisers of the poor, that had faith and no works, in the second Chapter, and did boast of this: others, that had hell fire in their Tongue, and carried about with them a world of iniquity, which did set the wheel, the whole course of Nature on fire, in the third Chapter, and last of all, some he observed warring and fight, kill, that they might take the prey, and divide the spoil, in the fourth Chapter; And yet all religious; Every one seeking out death in the error of his life, and yet every one seeming to press forward towards the mark, for the price of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. To these, as to men ready to dash upon the rock and shipwreck, doth our Apostle cry out as from the shore, to turn their compass, and steer their course the right way, and seeing them, as it were, run several ways all to meet at last in the common gulf of eternal destruction; He calls, and calls aloud after them. To the superstitious, and the profane, To the disputer and the scribe, to them that do but hear, and to them that do but babble, To them that do but profess, and to them that do but believe, the word is; Be not deceived, This is not it: but Haec est, This is pure Religion is vox à Tergo, as the Prophet speaks, Esay 30. a voice behind them, saying, This is the way, walk in it: This is as a light held forth to show them where they are to walk; as a royal Standard set up to bring them to their colours: This doth Infinitatem rei ejicere, as the Civilians speak. Take them from the Devils latitudes and expatiations, from frequent and fruitless hearing, from loud, but heartless prayer, from their beloved but dead faith, from undisciplined and malicious zeal, From noise and blood, from fight and warring, which could not but defile them, and make them fit to receive nothing, but the spots of the world, from the infinite mazes and by-paths of Error, and brings them into the way, where they should be, where they may move with joy and safety, looking steadfastly towards the End.  
Let us now hear the conclusion of the whole matter, whatsoever Divines have taught, whatsoever Counsels have determined or the schoolmen defined: whatsoever God spoke in the old times, whatsoever he spoke in these last days, That which hath filled so many volumes, and brought upon us Fatigationem Carnis, that weariness of the flesh, 
Ecclesia. 1 2.12.  which Solomon complains of, in reading that multitude of Books, with which the world doth now swarm with, That which we study for, which we contend for, which we fight for, as if it were in Democritus his Well, or rather, as the Apostle speaks, in Hell itself, quite out of our reach, or if there be any truth that is necessary, or any other commandment, it is briefly comprehended in this saying, even in this of Saint James, Pure Religion, and undefiled before God and the Father is this, to visit, etc.  
I way call it the picture of Religion in little; in a small compass, and yet presenting all the lines and dimensions; the whole signature of Religion, fit to be hung up in the Church of Christ, and to be looked upon by all, that the people, which are and shall be born may truly serve the Lord: May it please you therefore a while to cast your eyes upon it, and with me to view. First, The full proportion, and several lineaments of it, as it were the essential parts which constitute, and make it what it is, and we may distinguish them as the Jew doth the Law: by Do, and Do not; The first is Affirmative: To do Good: to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction. The second not to do evil; to keep ourselves unspotted from the world. And then secondly, to look upon as it were the colours and beauty of it, and to look upon it with delight, as it consists, First in its purity, having no mixture. Secondly, in its undefiledness, having no pollution. And then thirdly, the Epigraph or title of it, the Ratification or seal, which is set to it to make it Authentic, which is set to, not of men, or by men: but divinâ manu by the hand of God Himself, which drew the first copy, and pattern: For, this is true Religion apud Deum & patrem with God and the Father, and as he gave witness to his Son from Heaven, This is my beloved Son, so doth he also to Christiain Religion, of which he was the Author and Finisher. Haec est, This is it, and in this I am well pleased: Pure Religion and undefiled before God, etc.  
Let us now in order view these; and these two; To do Good, and abstain from Evil, our charity to others in the one, and our charity to ourselves in the last, in being as those Dii benefici those Tutelar Gods to the Widows and Fatherless, and those 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to keep all evil from ourselves, I call the essential parts of Religion, without which it can no more subsist, than a man without a soul; For as the body without the spirit is dead, even so faith without works is dead also.  
Not that we exclude Faith, or Prayer, or Hearing of the Word; for without faith religion is but an empty name, and it comes by hearing, and is increased by devotion. Faith is a foundation upon a Foundation: for as Truth is the foundation of faith, 
Amb. in Psal. 118.  so is faith the Foundation of an Holy Conversation, in this we edify ourselves, and in this we sustain and uphold others, in this we stand, and in this we raise up others; From faith are the issues of life, from this, as from a fountain flow those waters of comfort, which refresh the widow, and fatherless, and that water of separation, 
Num. 31.23.  which purifies us, keeps us unspotted, as white as snow.  
But our Apostle mentions none of these, and I will give you some reason; at least, a fair conjecture, why he did not. And first, not Faith, we see here where he tells us what Pure Religion is, he doth not so much as name it; for indeed, it is the ground of the whole draught and portraiture of Religion, and as we observe it in Pictures it is in shadow; not expressed, out yet seen: supposed by Saint James, writing not to Insiders, but to those who had already given up their names unto Christ. And it is like those 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Mathematics, which Tully calls juitia Mathematicorum, the beginnings and principles of that science, which if we grant not, we can make no further progress in that science. In the sixth to the Hebrews Saint Paul calls it a principle of the Doctrine of Christ: and what necessity was there for my Apostle to commend that unto them which they already embraced, to direct them in that in which they were perfect, to urge that which they could not deny; not deny? nay, of which they made their boast all the day long? No: Saint James is for ostend mihi, he doth not once doubt of their faith, but is very earnest to force it out, that it may evaporate, and show itself in their works of piety: Then faith is a star, 
2 Tim. 1.19.  and when it streams out light, and the beams are the works of charity: Then faith is as a ship, when Pure Religion is the rudder to steer and guide it, that it dash not on a rock, and shipwreck: Then faith is the soul of the soul, when by its quickening and enlivening power we run the ways of Christ's commandments: pure creduat, pure ergo loquantur, faith the Father: Their belief is right, therefore let their conversation be sincere, no other conclusion can naturally be deduced from faith, and of itself it can yield no other, and this it will yield, if you do not in a manner destroy it, and spoil it of its power and efficacy; for what an unnatural inconsequence is this, I believe that Christ hath taught me, to be merciful, as my heavenly Father is merciful: That charity hath the promise of the world to come, Therefore I will shut up my bowels; this I am sure is one part of our belief, if it be not, our Creed is most imperfect; and yet such practical conclusions doth our avarice and luxury draw. Our faith is spread about the world, but our charity is as a candle under a bushel; the great error, and folly of this our age, which can show us multitudes of men and women, which, as the Apstle speaks, are ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the Truth, which have conned their Creed by heart, but have little skill, or forgot their skill they have, in the royal Law; who cry up faith as the Jews did the Temple of the Lord, and are very zealous for it, yet suffer it to decay and waste, till it be dead, as my Apostle speaks, cat out the very heart of it, by a careless and profane conversation, as the Jews with their own hands did set fire on that Temple. which they so much adored.  
And this may be a second reason, why he mentions not faith in his character of Religion; for having every where preached up the power and efficacy of faith, men carnally minded did so fill their thoughts, with the contemplation of that fundamental virtue, that they left no roomfor other virtues, not so efficacious indeed to justify a sinner, yet as necessary as faith itself: did commend & extol the power of faith, when it had none at all in them, nay, (which is the most fatal miscarriage of all) did make it an occasion, 
Rom. 6.6.  through which sin revived, which should have destroyed in them the whole body and juncture of sin; it being common to men at last to fix and fettle their minds upon that object which is most often presented to their minds, as the Country peasant having heard much talk of the City of Rome, began at last to think there was no other City but that: If we look forward to the second Chapter of this Epistle, we shall think this more than a conjecture; for there he seems to take away from faith its saving attribute, Numquid fides potest salumn sacere? Can faith save a man? What an Heretic, what a Papist would he be, that should but put up this question in these our days? wherein the sola justificat hath left faith alone in the work of our salvation: and yet the question may be put up, and the resolve on the negative may be true; It cannot save him certainly that saith he hath faith, and hath not works: And thus, though he dispute indeed against Simon the sorcerer, and others, as we may gather out of Irenaeus, yet in appearance he levels his discourse against Paul the Apostle: for not by works, but by saith, faith Saint Paul, not by faith, but by works, saith Saint James, and yet both are true, the one speaking to the Jews, who were all for the Law the other to those who were all for faith, and to them who had buried all thought of good works in the pleasing but deceitful contemplation of faith, he speaks no other language, but do this; and exalts charity to the higher place, that their vain boasting of faith might not be heard; for faith, saith he, hath no tongue, nay, no life without her, and thus in appearance he takes from the one, to establish the other, and sets up a throne for charity, not without some show, and semblance of prejudice to faith.  
For last of all, to give you one reason more: Faith indeed is naturally productive of good works: For what madness is it to see the way to eternity of bliss, and not to walk in it? Each article of our Creed points out, as with ●e finger, to some virtue to be wrought out in the mind, and published in the outward man. If I believe that Christ is God, it will follow, I must worship him: If he died for sin, the consequence is plain enough, we must die to it: If he so loved us, the Apostle concludes, we must love one another: charity is the proper effect of faith, and upon faith, and charity we build up our hope, if we believe the promises, and perform the condition, if we believe him that loved us, and love him, and keep his commandments, we are in heaven already. But yet we may observe, that the corruption of our hearts finds something in faith itself, to abate and weaken her force, and power, and to take off her activity, and so makes the very object of faith an encouragement to evil, and (which is a sad speculation) the mercy of God, a kind of temptation to sin: Mercy is a precious ointment, and mercy breaks our head; mercy blots out sin, and mercy revives it; mercy is our hope, and mercy is made our confusion: we should sin no more, but we sin more and more, because his mercy endureth for ever: we turn the grace of God into wantonness, and make this Queen of his glorious attributes to wait on our lust: of a Covering, a purging, a Healing, a saving, (I tremble to speak it) we make it a damning mercy; for had we not abused it, had we not relied upon it too much, had we not laid upon it all our uncleanness, our impenitency, and wilful obstinacy in sin, it would have upheld us, and lifted us up as high as Heaven; but our bold presumption lays hold of it, and it flings us off, and we fall from it, into the bottomless pit.  
This than we may take for a sufficient reason, why our Apostle puts not faith into his description of Pure Religion, and in the next place, as he doth not mention faith, so he passeth by in silence, rather than forgets those other excellent duties of prayer, and hearing the word.  
For these two, whatsoever high esteem we put upon them; howsoever we magnify them till they are nothing, till ourselves are worse than nothing, worse than the beasts that perish, yet are they not the end; and their end is perdition, who make them so, and think that to ask a blessing is to have it, when they put it from them: or to hear of God is to love him: to hear of that happiness, which he hath laid up, is to be in Paradise. The perfection of the creature, saith the Philosopher is ad naturae suae sinem pervenire, to attain to the end for which he was made, and the end of the Christian is, to be like unto Christ, that where he is, He may be also; that is his end, that is his perfection: Now to draw this home, these two, to Hear and to Pray; do not make us like unto him, but are sufficient means to renew the image of God in us, that so we may resemble him, they are not the haven to which we are bound, but are as prosperous and advantageous winds to carry us to it, Quod per se bonum est, semper est bonum, that which is good in itself, and for itself, is always good, as true piety, true Religion, but those duties which tend to it, have their reward or punishment as they reach, or miss of that end; what is hearing, if it beget not obedience? what are prayers if they be but the calves of our lips? Oh, 'tis a sad question to be asked, when we shall see Christian's full of malice and deceit, Have they not heard? they have heard that malice shall destroy the wicked, that deceit is an abomination, that oppression shall eat them up, yet will be such monsters, as if they never heard; oh, 'tis a sad expostulation to the wicked, Have they not heard, and as sad a return may be made to our prayers; we may stretch out our hands, and God may hid his eyes from us, we may make many prayers and he not hear, we may lift up our hands, and vocie unto Heaven, and our mind stay below wallowing in the mire of foul pollutions, mixed and engendering with the vanities of the world; for as we may fast to strife and debate, so we may pray to strife and debate, as there may be a politic Fast, so our prayer may have more in it of craft than devotion, we may make it a trade, a craft, an occupation, and so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 stoutly labour and holdout, not to take the kingdom of Heaven, but to devour widows houses; make this Key of the Gates of Heaven, a picklock to open Chests, and so debase it to these vile offices, which is a sin, cujus non audeo dicere nomen, for which I have no name bad enough to give it: and what is Prayer then? what are the means if we rest in them as in the end? what are they, if we draw and force them to a bad end? what are they if we make no use of them at all, or make this sad and fatal use of them; if our Prayers bring down a curse; our hearing flatter us in our disobedience, if we Hear, and Pray, and Perish? These two, and what else of this nature have their worth and efficacy from Religion, from charity to ourselves, & others, which are as the two wings, on which our prayers ascend, and mount to the presence of God, to bring down a blessing from thence: These sanctify our fasts, these open the ears of the deaf, that hearing they may hear and understand: These consecrate our Pulpits, and are the best panegyrics on our Sermons, and make them indeed the word of God, powerful in operation, and without these our prayers are but babbling, and the Sermons, which we hear, but so many libels against us, or as so many knells and sad indications, that they, that hear them, are condemned, and dead already.  
For again, to visit the fatherless and widows in affliction, that is, to be full of good works, and to renounce, and abstain from the pleasures of the world (for those pleasures we dote on, those riches we sweat for, are those that bespot us) is a far harder task then to say a hundred pater no sters, or to continue our prayers, as Saint Paul did his preaching until midnight, or to hear a Sermon every day. Bid the wanton leave the lips of the harlot: 
Acts 20.  bid the ambitious make himself equal to them of low degree: bid the mammonist be rich in good works, and if he do not openly profess it, yet the conjecture will be easy and probable, that the wanton would choose rather to fast twice in the week with the Pharisee, than to make himself an Eunuch for the Kingdom of Heaven: the ambitious and covetous rather say their prayers (for such can but say them) then to stay themselves in the eager pursuit of their ends but so long, as to give an alms: the ambitious will pray and hear, and do any thing rather than fall lower, and the Miser chain his ears to the Pulpit, rather than to open them to the complaint of the poor: S. Basil observed it long since 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, etc. 
Grat. ad Ditescentes.  and tells us that he knew many, who without any great pains might be brought, to fast and pray, and to perform all parts of Religion, which were not chargeable, but could not be won with the most powerful eloquence, or strongest reason to any part of it, which did cost them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but one halfpenny 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a cheap Religion is as easy, as cheap; but Go, sell all that you have, and give to the poor, is a better pill, which we hardly let down, and with a sour countenance, and should we prescribe it now, to men of this Iron age, would they not as S. Paul speaks in another case, say, that we were out of our wits?  
And therefore in the last place, These two, if they be truly in us, are never, can never be alone, but suppose faith, which is sigillum bonorum operum, 
Serm. 23.  as Chrysologus speaks, the seal to every good work to make it currant and authentic, and he that is perfect in these, cannot be to seek in the rest. He that can govern a ship in a storm, when the Sea rages, and is unquiet, may easily manage a cockboat in a calm: he that can empty himself to his brother, that thinks the bellies of the poor the best granaries for his corn, and the surest treasury for his money, that can give unto God the things that are Gods, and return them back by the hands of his Ambassadors the poor, who beseech us in his Name; he that is an exile at home, and hath banished himself from the world, he lives in, so uses it, as if he used it not; he that hates sin, as an infectious plague, and in a holy pride will keep his distance from it, though it bow towards him in the person of his dearest friend, that can detest sacrilege, though his father were intricht by it, and passed it over to him, as an inheritance: He that can thus keep himself unspotted of the world, will lift up pure hands, and beat down his body and be ready to hearken what the Lord God will say; he that sends up so many sacrifices to God, he that thus makes himself a sacrifice, will offer up also the incense of his prayers: he that can abstain from sin, may fast from meat, he that hath broke his heart, will open his car: In a word, he that approves himself in these two, cannot but be active and exact in the rest.  
And now having shown you, what is but shadowed in this picture and description of Religion; let us look upon the picture itself, so look upon it, that we may draw it out, and express it in ourselves, in every limb and part of it, that they that behold us may say, God is in us of a truth, and glorify him at the sight of such religious men.  
And first we see Charity stretching forth her hand, and casting her bread upon the waters, the bitter waters of Affliction, going about to the widow and fatherless, and doing good, doing all those things which Jesus began to teach, walking in love as Christ loved us; 
Ciem. 2. strom. 404.  And this we may well call a part of Religion, and a fair representation of it; for by this the image of the likeness of God is repaired in us saith Bern, is made manifest in us, and as it were visible to the eye: For in every Act of charity he that dwells on High comes down in the likeness of men, speaks by the tongue, gives by the hand of a mortal man, moves in him, & moves with him to perfect this work. This makes us as God, in stead of God, one to another: for Homint homo quid praestat? one man is not superior to another, as he is a man (for in the Heraldry of Nature, all are of the same degree, all are equal; for all aremen) but when charity filleth his Heart, and stretcheth forth his Hand, he takes the higher place, the place of God, is his Ambassador and Steward, not of the same Essence with God, but bearing about with him, his Image, saith Clem. Al. Put you on, saith S. Paul, bowels of mercy, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the elect of God, when we have put them on, we then are indeed the elect of God, endowed with his spirit, carrying about with us the mercies of God, sent as it were from his mercy seat, with comfort and relief to those, who are minished and brought low by oppression, affliction & sorrow; we may flatter ourselves, and talk what we please of Election, and if we please entail it on a Faction, but most sure it is, without charity our election is not sure, and without bowels we can be no more Elect, than Judas the traitor was; Elect, that is by interpretation, the sons of perdition; It is doing good alone that makes us a Royal priesthood, and this Honour have all his Saints; the kings of the Gentiles, saith our Saviour, exercise authority upon them, and they that exercise authority over them are called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 benefactors or gracious Lords, are called what they should be, not what they are, for if they were gracious & Benefactors, than were they kings indeed, anointed with the oil of mercy, which is sent down from Heaven, being from the Heaven, Heavenly; that day, when this distilled not from him on others, Titus the Emperor did count as lost. Diem perdidi, so it is in Sueton: but Zonaras hath it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I have not reigned to day, this day I was not God's vicegerent: we read in the book of the Kings, that God gave Solomon a large Heart, and Pineda glosses it liberalem fecit, He made him liberal and merciful; we read that David was a man after Gods own heart, and Procopius upon that place gives this as the probable reason of this denomination, that he was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a lover of the poor, merciful as he is merciful, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Imitation gives us a kind of nearness, and familiarity with God; that in which we represent him, 
Synes. Epist. 30  makes as one with him, makes us as Christ speaks, his brother, and sister, and mother. This is our affinity, this is our honour, this is in a manner our Divinity on earth; For God and man, saith Synesius have but this one only thing common to them both, and that is, 
Heb. 13.16.  〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to do good; To do good and to distribute, forget not, for with such sacrifices God is pleased.  
This than may well go for one part, or limb of Religion: And in the next place, as in the visitation of the fatherless and widows all charity to our Brother is employed, so all charity to ourselves is shut up in this other in keeping ourselves unspotted of the world. And this phrase in keeping ourselves, is very significant, and that its weight; for those spots, which so defile us, and make us such Leopards, are not so much from the world, as from ourselves, as a cheat is not only from the cunning of the Impostor, but from the want of wisdom and experience in him that is deceived; 'tis Ignorance that promotes the cheat, that draws the power and faculty into Act, makes him that hath a subtle wit, injurious, and 'tis an evil heart, that makes the world contagious; for wisdom prevents a cheat, and watchfulness a spot. This world in itself hath nothing in it that can defile us; for God saw all that he made was good, 
Tertul. despectaculis. c. 2.  and it was very good, but Nihil non est Dei, quod Deum offendit, there is nothing by which we offend God, but is from God; that beauty, which kindles lust, is his gift; that gold which hath made that desolation upon the earth, was the work of his hands; he gives us the bread we surfeit on; he filleth the cup, that intoxicate us; the world is the Lords, and all that therein is, but yet this world bespots us not, because 'tis his, who cannot behold, much less could make any unclean thing.  
We must therefore search out another world: and you need not travel far, 
1 ep. 2.16.  for you may stay at home, and find it in yourselves; S. John hath made the discovery for you in his first Epistle, where he draws the map of it, and divides it to our hands into three provinces or parts; the first, the lust of the flesh, where unlawful pleasures sport themselves; secondly, the lust of the eyes, where covetousness builds her an house; thirdly, and the pride of life which whets a sword for the Revenger, erects a throne for the Ambitious, raiseth up a triumphant Arch for the vainglorious; this is the world, saith S. John, even a world of wickedness; this inverteth the whole course of Nature, makes the wheel of the Creation move disorderly; this world within us, makes that world without us an enemy; makes beauty deceitful, wine a mocker, riches a snare works that into sin, out of which, we might have made a key to open the gates of Heaven; drops its poison under every leaf, upon every object, and by its mixture with the world, engenders that serpent, which spits the poison back again upon us, and not only bespots, 
James 1.15.  and defiles, but stings us to death: for when Lust hath conceived it bringeth forth sin, and when sin is finished it defiles a man, and leave those spots behind it, which deface him, and gives him a thousand several shapes; the Schools call it maculam peccati the blot and slain of sin, which is of no positive reality, but a deprivation, and defect of beauty in the soul, and varies, as shadows do, according to the diversity of those bodies, that cast it. We see then, that there is a world within us, as well as without us, and when these two are in conjunction, when our lust joins itself to the things of this world, as the prodigal is said to do to a master in a far country, then follows pollution and deformity, and as many spots, as there be sins, which are as many as the hairs of our head; Beauty brings in deformity, riches poverty, plenty brings leanness into the soul; and therefore to conclude this, to keep our hearts with diligence, and to keep ourselves unspotted of the world, is a main and principal part of our Religion, and will keep us members of Christ, and parts of the Church, when profaneness, and covetousness, which is Idolatry, shall have laid her discipline, her honour in the dust: A man of tender bowels and a pure heart is as the Church; and the gates of hell cannot prevail against him. By this we imitate that God we worship, we draw near unto him, as near as flesh and mortality will permit; our escaping the spots and pollutions of this world makes us followers of that God, who marks every spot we have, and is not touched, sees us in our blood and pollution and is not defiled, beholds all the wickedness in the world, and yet remains the same for ever, even goodness and purity itself; this makes us partakers, as Saint Peter speaks of the Divine nature, in a word, 
2 Pet. 1.4.  to be in the world and tread it under our feet, to be in Sodom, and to be a Lot, on the hills of the robbers, and do no wrong, to be in the midst of snares and not be taken; to be in Paradise, 
Import.  and see the Apple pleasant to the sight, to be compassed about with glorious objects of delight and pleasures, and not to Taste or Touch or Handle, is the nearest assimilation that Dust and Ashes, that mortal man can have to his Creator.  
I may well then call these two the Essential parts of Religion: 
Antigoni Imaginem ●…otegenes obliquam fecit, ut quod corpore deerat, picturae potius deesse videretur, tantumque eam partem oslendit, quam toram poterat ostendere. Plin. Nat. Hist. l. 35. c. 11.  of which as you have taken a short several view, so be pleased to observe also their mutual dependence and necessary connexion; for if either be wanting, you spoil the whole piece; for neither will my charity to my brother entitle me to Religion, if I be an enemy to myself; nor my abstaining from evil Canonize me a saint, if my goodness be not diffusive on others, and if we draw out in ourselves the picture of Religion, but with one of these, we do but like the painter, who to flatter Antigonus, because he had but one eye, Drew but the half face.  
For first, to visit the Fatherless and widows, i. e. to be plenteous in good works, ista sunt quasi incunabula pietatis saith Gregory, 
Augustin.  these are the very beginnings and nursery of the love of God, and there is no surer, and readier step to the love of God whom we have not seen, then by the love of our Brethren whom we see; 
Gregor.  Tunc ad alta charitas mirabiliter surgit, cum ad ima proximorum se misericorditer attrahit, Then our charity gins to improve itself, and rise as high as Heaven, when it bows and descends, and falls low, to sit with a Brother in the Dust; and if you search the Scriptures, if you look over Christ's Sermon on the Mount, you will easily be induced to believe, that the greatest service we can do to God, is to serve one another in love, who made us all, and to this end; alterutra diligentia charitatis, as Tertul. calls it; This mutual and reciprocal work of charity in upholding each other, is that which makes us indeed the servants of Christ.  
Secondly, as compassion to our Brethren is a fair preparation to purity of life, so doth purity of conversation commend our liberality, and makes it to be had in remembrance in the sight of the Lord; Compassion in a profane, impure person, is but a sudden forced motion, is but by fits and starts, for sure it cannot stay, and dwell in such a sty. He that wallows in the pleasures of this world, he that devotes himself to riot and luxury, cannot gain the title of religious by some cup of cold water, some piece of money, which he gives; He that gathers by oppression, and then let's fall an Alms, doth but steal an Ox to make a Sacrifice, perdere scit, 
Tae. 1. Hist.  donare nescit, as Piso said of Otho. He knows how to blast and spoil, but not how to give an Alms; and commonly those winds blow not out of the Treasury of the Lord: this bounty flows not from the clear Fountain of Divine love, but hath some other spring. Thus to visit the fatherless and widows, and to reach out that hand unto them, which is stained with the blood of others, is not pure and undfiled Religion, it may be Bread, 'tis not an Alms, that is brought by the Hand of an Oppressor, or Pharisee.  
And therefore in the next place, as they bear this fair correspondence and mutually uphold each other, so we must not think it possible to separate them. For some there be who come on slowly to the works of charity, because they are not guilty of those sins, 
Greg. Hom. 36. in Evang.  which have shame written in their very foreheads, pigri ad exercenda bona praecipua, quia securi, quod non commiserint mala Graviora, as Greg. are very backward to to good, because they have not been overforward to do evil; dull and heavy, to the performance of the best deeds, because they have not been active in the worst; men, for the many of them, of more forecast, than conscience, that own their morality not to the love of God, but the world, knowing well enough, that those vices which the world cries down, are commonly enemies to thrift, delightful but costly; there being scarce any one of them, which is not a stake in his way, which makes haste to be rich, and therefore they do abstain, that they may not abstain, abstain from these disgraced expensive vices, that their abstinence from these may be as a warrant, or commission for them, to make their Brethren their daily sustenance, and to eat them up as they eat Bread, to devour these Temples of the Holy Ghost with as little regret, as they do those, which are made with hands: And this is a common fault amongst Christians; to think the performance of one part of our Duty to be an Apology for the neglect of the other, and that the observance of some few precepts, will absolve us from the breach of the rest, that a sigh is louder than an oath, and can sooner call down a pardon, than the flying Book can bring a curse; that the diligence of the Ear will answer for the boldness of the Hand: That a Fast will make Sacrilege a Virtue, and the keeping of the seventh Day, acquit us of those sins which we have resolved already to corumit in the other six.  
Indeed saith Basil, it is a great deal easier to do nothing at all, then to finish and perfect a good work. Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not commit Adultery, Thou shalt not steal, Those are Negative precepts, and require but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but forbeatance and sitting still; a not drawing to the Harlot's lips, a not touching the wedge of gold, a not taking up the instruments of cruelty, but to love our Neighbour, as our selves, to fell all and give to the poor, to visit the Fatherless and Widows in their affliction, are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, works fit for a Soldier, 
Basil in Ps. 1.  and strong man in Christ; and we must beat down many enemies, many wild passions in our way, before we can raise ourselves to this height, nor can any man take this Honour to himself, but he that is called and fitted of God, as were Abraham, and Isaac, and those Patriarcks and Apostles, who were full of good works: Both than are required at our hands, and if God hath joined them both together, let no man take upon him to divorce or put them asunder.  
For in the next place, these two thus linked and united together, will keep Religion pure and undefiled, which I told you were as the colours and beauty of it; the Beauty of Holiness, which hath its colour and Grace, from whence it hath its being and strength, and if it be true, will shine in the perfection of Beauty. Religion, if it be true, and not a name only is, as a virgin pure, and undefiled, and makes us so, and espouses us to Christ; and as the father tells us, Omnia virgins, virgo sunt, all that a virgin hath is so a virgin, 
Basil l. de virginitate.  her eyes not touched with vanity, her ears not deflowered with evil communication, her thoughts not ravished with the insiliencie of wanton desires, her taste not violated with studied dainties, and devised meats, but in all is like herself, a Virgin: So is this Religion, simple, and solid; Full of itself, and receives no Heterogeneous matter, but is ever the same, and about the same: There is nothing in our love, which sours our Justice, nothing in our Justice to kill our Compassion, nothing in our liberality to defile our Chastity, nothing in our Fear to beat down our Confidence, 
Tertul. de corens. mel.  nothing in our Zeal to consume our Charity. Christianus nusquam est aliud, a true Religious man is always himself.  
And as it is pure without mixture; so it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and cannot subsist with pollution and profaneness. 
2 Tit. 2.5.  〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 now are our Olympics. Now is the great trial to be made before God and the Father: and our Religion consists in this, to fight it out, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 legally, a condition they were bound to, who were admitted to those games and exercises: for before they did contend, in the proclamation was made to this purpose, whether they were not Servants or Thiefs, or otherwise of an infamous life; and if any of these were proved against them, they were put back; The same proclamation is made from Heaven, to those who enter our Olympics, who enter Religion and give up their names to Christ, that they may sight for mastery and be crowned; our Saviour tells them they must 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sit down, and consider what it is, in which they have engaged themselves, how full of trouble, how full of danger, how many thorns and lets there be in their way, how many Adversaries; not to think it is enough to name Christ; but when they name him, let them departed from all Iniquity, and carefully provide, that the Integrity of their life should rather commend their Religion, then that their Religion should be suborned, and brought in to countenance the irregularity of their manners: For we cannot but observe, that from the corruption of men's lives, have all those corruptions and mixtures crept into Religion, which carry with them a near likeness and resemblance to those spots, which men have received from the world; Ambition hath brought in her mixture, and covetousness hers, and pleasures have dropped their poison, and left their very mark and characters in the doctrines of men, which are framed and fashioned to favour and advance that evil humour, which doth first set them up. Covetousness and Ambition may set up a Chair, or Consistory, and from thence shall provision be made to feed, and nourish them both to a monstrous growth: Nam ut in vitâ, 
l. 12. c. prim.  sic in causis spes improbas habent saith Quintil. for those unlawful hopes, and foul desires, which sway us in our lives, appear again, and show themselves as full of power to pervert, and misled us in point of Doctrine. One would think that the world had nothing to do in the School of Christ, that Mammon could not hold the pen of the scribe, or conclude in the Schools, or have a voice and suffrage in a Council, that money, and honour, and pleasure, could bring nothing to the stating of a Question, but through the corruptness of men's minds, and manners, it hath in all ages so fallen out, that these have been the great deciders of Controversies, have started Questions, and resolved them, have called Counsels, and decreed with them; for we may be soon persuaded it was no other spirit then this, which was sent from Rome in a Cloak-bag to the Council of Trent, we say the World; we have seen enough to raise such a Thought: That the Church hath been governed, that, That which we call Religion, hath been carried on by private Interest. From hence are those corruptions of Truth, and mixtures in Religion; From hence those Generations of Questions, those Catalogues of Heresies; From hence so many Religions, and none at all, for Faction cannot be Religion, (for it cuts off the fairest part and member she ha●…, which is Charity) And thus, if Religion lose one of these colours, she loses her beauty; If she be not pure, she cannot long be sincere and entire, and if she be defiled, she will receive Additions; the worship of Saints to the worship of God, the sire of Purgatory to the blood of Christ, the indulgence of man, to the free pardon of God, Irreverence and profaneness to our hatred of superstition, and to our zeal, oppression, and murder: In a word, if it be not pure without mixture, and undefiled without pollution, it is not Religion.  
And now I have showed you the picture of Religion in little, 
The Ratification.  represented it to you in these two; Doing of Good, and abstaining from Evil; filling the hungry with good things, and purging, and emptying ourselves of all uncleanness; you have its beauty in its Graceful and Glorious Colours of Purity and Undefiledness, Dignum Deo speciaculum, a picture to be hung up in the Church, nay, before God himself; for thus it appears Coram Deo & Pare before God and the Father, and hath its ratification from Him. He was the first that set it up to be looked upon: He hath revealed his will by his Son, who is the wisdom of his Father, who gave unto us the words which his Father gave him; which give us a full, 
John 17.8.  and exact rule of life, a method of Obedience and Glory, the way to be like him in this world, and to see him in the next, and there needs no other method, no other way, no other Rule, nor a Basil, or a Benedict to enlarge it; nor is it of so easy and quick dispatch, that it hath left to men leisure for further practice, nor so imperfect, that it should need supply from a second Hand: why should the fancy, the unsettled, whirling fancy of a man who is ignorant as a beast before him, take the boldness to prompt, and instruct the wisdom of the Almighty? quod à Deo discitur totum est, all that we need learn, all that we can learn, he alone can teach us. By this, Christian Religion hath the prerogative above all other Religions in the world; for though there be many that are called Gods as S. Paul speaks; 
1 Cor. 8.5.  though there be many that are called religions, yet unto us as there is but one God, so there is but one Religion, which is commentum divinitatis the invention, or rather the Revelation of the Deity, and had no author, could have no author but God himself. Take that which seems to carry a fairer show and comes abroad 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 like Agrippa, and Bernice with great pomp and ceremony, with voluntary Humility, Blind obedience, with Sackcloth, and fasting, with a pilgrim's staff, with penance and satisfaction; and we know from what hands it came; ab Hominibus & per Homines of men, and by men, who, for many of them, drew Religion out of the soul into the outward man, betook themselves to this bodily exercise, as to a Sanctuary, so to avoid the continual luctations and lasting Agonies of the mind, enters Religion (that is the phrase) but carried little Charity, and all those spots they received from the world along with them. What voice from Heaven did Charles the fifth the Duke of Parma, and others hear, that having lived in all state and pomp, they should count it meritorious to be buried in the Hood of a Capuchin? or what satisfaction is this Coram Deo & Pa●re, before God and the Father?  
Again, take that which indeed is called Religion, and with that noise and vehemency, as if there were none but that, yet is as different from it as a picture from a man; Take all our mimic gestures, our forced and studied deportment, the Pharisaical extermination of the Countenance, our libelling the Times (which we help to make evil) our zeal, our revenge, our indignation against sin in all, but ourselves, all these are but puppets of our own making, a creation of a sick and distempered fancy, and do but justify us Coram Hominibus before men, 
Luke 16.15.  saith our Saviour, and those too no wiser than ourselves, but that which follows defaceth all our pageantry, Spectat nos ex alto Deus rerum arbiter; men see us, who see but our face, but God also is a spectator, and He knoweth the Heart. Take that zeal, which consumes not ourselves, but others about us; this fire is not from Heaven, nor was it kindled by the Father of lights; that hand which is so ready to take a Brother by the throat, was never guided by the Author of our Religion, who is our Father: That tongue which is full of Bitterness and reviling, was never touched by a Cherubin, but set on fire of Hell. These are not Religions Coram Deo & Patre before God and the Father, but this Religion to do good, and abstain from evil ex alto origine ducit acknowledgeth no author but the God of Heaven, hath God and the Father to bear witness to it, was foreshowed by the Prophets, chundered out by the Apostles and Christ himself, who was the Author and Finisher of our Faith and Religion.  
And this may serve, 
The Application.  first, to make us in love with this Religion, because it hath such a founder as God the Father who is wisdom itself, and can neither be deceived, nor deceive us. Ye men and Brethren, and whosoever among you feareth God, to you is this word of salvation sent; Acts 13.26. sent to you from Heaven; from God and the Father; in other things you are very curious, and ever desire to receive them from the best hands: what a present is a picture of Apelles making? or a statue of Lysippus? not the watch you wear, but you would have it from the best Artificer; and shall our curiosity spend itself on vanities, and leave us careless, and indifferent in the choice of that, which must make our way to eternity of bliss, shall we make darkness our pavilion round about us, and please ourselves in error, when Heaven bows and opens itself to receive us? and shall we worship our own imaginations, and not hearken what God and the Father shall say? what a shame is it when God from Heaven points with his finger to the rule; Haec est this is it; that we should frame a Religion to ourselves, that every man's fancy, and humour, or which is the height of impiety, every man's sin should be his Lawgiver? that when there can be but one, there should be so many Religions, Arbitrary Religions, such as we are pleased to have, because they smile upon us, and flatter and bolster up our irregular desires; a Hearing Religion, and a Talking Religion, and a Trading Religion, a Religion that shall visit the Widow and Orphan, but rather to devour, then refresh them? Behold, and look no farther, God the Father hath made a Religion, which is pure and undefiled to our hands; and therefore as Seneca counsels Polybius; when thou wouldst forget all other things, Cogita Caesarem, entertain Caesar in thy thoughts; so that we may forget all other sublimary, worldly, I may say, Hellish Religions, let us think of this Religion, whose Author and Founder is God, whose wisdom is infinite, whose power uncontrollable, whose authority unquestionable; for talk what we will of authority, the authority of man is like himself, and can but bind the man, and that the frailest and earthliest part of him, only God is Rex mentium the King of our minds, and no authority in Heaven, or in Earth, can bind or lose a Soul but his, who first breathed it into man; Come then let us worship and fall down before God the Father, the maker both of us, and our Religion.  
Again in the second place, if Saint James be Canonical, and Authentic, if this be true Religion, than it will make up an answer sufficient to stop the mouth of those of the Romish party, who are very busy to demand at our hands a catalogue of Fundamentals, and where our Church was before the days of Reformation, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as it is in the Proverb; These and such like they put up unto us, as Archytas did his rattles into children's hands, to keep them from doing mischief; that being busy, and taken up with these, we may have less leisure to pull down her Idols, or discover her shame; Do they ask what truths are Fundamental? Faith supposed, as it is; here they are charity to ourselves, and others; nihil ultra scire, est omnia scire, to know this, is to know all we need to know; for it is not sufficient to know that, which is sufficient to make us happy? but, 
Tert. de prescript.  if nothing will satisfy them but a Catalogue of particulars, Habent Mosen & Prophetas, they have Moses and the Prophets, they have the Apostles, and if they find them not there, in vain shall they seek for them at our hands; they may if they please seek them there, and then number them out, as they do their Prayers, by Beads, and present them by Tale, but if they will yet know, what is Fundamental in our conceit, and what not, they may 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 draw them out with both hands; for first let them observe what points they are, in which we agree with their Church, and (if they be in Scripture) let them set them down, if they please, as Fundamental in our account, and on the other hand, let them mark in what points we refuse Communion with them, and they cannot but Think that we esteem those points for no Fundamentals. And again do they, who measure Religion rather by the pomp and state it carries with it, than the power and majesty of the Author, whose command alone made it Religion, ask us, where our Religion was in the days before there was a withdrawing from the Communion with that Church, we may answer; it was here in the Text; for haec est this is it; and if they further question us, where it was professed, we need give no other reply then this; it was professed, where it was professed; if it were not protest in any place, yet was it true Religion, for the truth depends not on the profession of it, nor is it less truth, if none receive it; but professed it was even amongst them, in the midst of them, round about them; but wheresoever it were, Haec erat, this was it, this was true Religion before God and the Father, to visit the Fatherless and Widows in their Affliction, and to keep ourselves unspotted of the World.  
To conclude then. 
Conclus. 3.  Men and Brethren, are these things so? and is this only true Religion to do good and abstain from evil? what a busy noise then doth the world make for Religion, when it offers itself and falls so low, offers itself to the meanest understanding, the narrowest capacity, and throws itself into the embraces of any that will love it; Littus Hyla, Hyla, Omne sonabat, Religion is the talk of the whole world, it is preached on the house tops, and it is cried up in the streets, we are loud for it, and smother it in that noise, we writ for it, and leave it dead in that letter, to be found no where but in our books; we fight for it, and it is drowned in the blood that is spilt; and Saint James his, that is, Christ's Religion is little thought of, but trampled under foot in the quarrel: For if this should take place amongst the sons of men, we should have more religion and less noise; for haec est, this is it, which alone is able to slumber this noise, to still the raging of the Sea, and the tumults of the people: This would stay the hand of the scribe to write less, and to more purpose; This would break the Bow, and cut the Spears, and burn the Chariots with fire: Can this Religion, Can the Gospel of Christ prevail; Can we deny ourselves, and take up the Cross, and keep ourselves unspotted from the world, there would be then no wars, nor rumurs of wars: Let us not deceive ourselves; it is the neglect and want of this, that hath been the main cause of all these hot contentions and digladiations which have been, and as yet are in the Church of Christ, I mean amongst those who call one another Christians, whose mark and badge it is, to love one another, but they lie one to another, and love the world, and in a base but fierce emulation justle one another out of it, and so lose the thing, and retain nothing but the name, which is less than a shadow, rejoice together at the news of a Saviour, and neglecting this Religion in the Text, are all lost, are disciples of Christ, but such disciples as shall be punished with more stripes than they that never heard of his name. This, this is it, that condemns the world; that makes it an Aceldama, a field of blood, as Hell itself, full of confusion; for if men had been careful to walk by the same rule, which was as plain and manifest, as if it had been written with the Sunbeams, and kept themselves in a joint obedience to this Religion, to those truths wherein they could not but agree, and not sought out many inventions, the seed-plots, and nurseries of contention and debate, (for from hence they spring, and here they will grow, and grow thick, and multiply) if our Religion had been pure and undefiled, it had saved many a poor carcase from the fire; and I may be bold to say, many a soul from Hell; and though men's opinions in other matters had been as different as their shape and complexion, yet their agreement in the known duties of Religion, would have been a Fence and Bulwark strong enough, to have kept contention from breaking in with fire and sword. But when Ambition and Covetousness and other low and vile respects had taken possession of the hearts of men, than matter of Religion, became matter of Faction, and the fuel of that fire, which consumed many, but troubled all: then began men to rack the Scriptures, to make them speak what they would have them, even that which might dilate their phylacteries, and stretch forth the Curtains of their Habitation, and feed that noxious humour in them which was most predominant, and like those Soldiers in Tacitus malle victoriam, quam pacem, to desire not peace, but victory; though most times, which side soever prevailed, it was not so much against an adverse party, as the truth itself. This hath been a great, nay, the greatest evil under the Sun, and hath brought in so many Religions into the world, that many men are not as yet well resolved which to choose, the Devil's subtlest engine to bring in at last an opinion, that there is none at all.  
By this you may see of what sovereign use my Text is, even as a precious balm, which can so easily allay the swelling, and raging controversies, with which the Church is so much troubled, (as some Philosophers have told us that oil poured into the sea when 'tis most tempestuous doth presently calm it; 
Mare oleo tranquillatur. Plin Nat. Phil. l. 2. c. 103.  many have wished, that there were a Judge of controversies, which might appease these broils, with which Christendom is distracted; and some have thought it necessary, and therefore have set one up, and built a chair with this privilege; that he that fits in it, though he be an Heretic can never err. Behold here is a Judge of controversies, teaching every man to judge and give sentence of life or death in himself; if this be his Religion, he is alive, and shall live for evermore, but if he case this behind him, and shut charity out of doors, he is condemned already; this is our Judge of controversies, and I think, we need no more. The Jews say, that when Elias shall come, he shall resolve all their doubts; Lo Elias is come already, and in these words of my Text hath sufficiently resolved all controversies in Divinity, so far forth as is necessary for our information; Thou canst not now ask what lack I yet? for here are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 all that Jesus did teach, and if we can interpret this Text; that is, express and manifest it in our lives and conversation, then have we 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 confidence with God and the Father. To conclude,  
Let us therefore as many as be perfect, be thus minded, let us cleave to this, and make it our guide and Angel in our way, and if you be otherwise minded, if in other things less necessary you err as men, God shall reveal even the same unto you, as far as his wisdom sees it necessary; it is that excellent counsel of S. Paul Phil. 3.15. Let us be thus minded, and let us have this picture of Religion drawn out by S. James ever hanging before our eyes, let us look upon it, let us walk with it, let us go to bed with it, let us carry it about with us whithersoever we go, I was about to say, let us fall down and worship it (you need not fear superstition) for this is the worship of God himself; Oh let it be as an ornament to our heads, let us hang it up in our best room, our hearts, but so as to show it to the widow and the fatherless, 
Plin. Neg. l. 38.8.  let us make it, as Polycletus called his most excellent piece Canona a rule and pattern, by which we may draw and express it, and make it visible in our life and conversation, that men may see it, and glorify God, even the Father which is in Heaven, that Angels may see it and applaud it; that God himself may see it, and fix an Euge upon it, well done, for it is done before me, and according to the pattern which I set up, and this shall keep us at peace within ourselves, this shall make our enemies at peace with us, this shall be to us Righteousness, and peace, and glory, and peace shall be upon us, as many as walk according to this rule and mercy and upon the Israel of God.  
Which God Grant. etc.   

THE SECOND SERMON.  1 SAM. 3.18. 
And Samuel told Eli every whit, and kept nothing from him. And He said, It is the Lord, let him do what seemeth him Good.  
THe words are the words of old Eli the Priest; and have reference to that message which young Samuel brought him from the Lord, such a message, as did make both the ears of every one that heard it tingle, ver. 11. Come see the work of sin, what desolation it makes upon the Earth. Ophni, and Phinehas, the two profane, and adulterous Sons must die: old Eli, the indulgent Father, the High Priest must die; Thirty four thousand Israelites must fall by the sword of the Philistines: The Ark, the glory of Israel must be taken, and be delivered up in triumph unto Dagon; this was the word of the Lord, which he spoke by the mouth of the child Samuel, and not a word of his did fall to the ground at the 19 verse: for what God foretells, is done already; with him that calleth the things that are not, as if they were, as the Prophet speaks, there is no difference of times, Nothing past; Nothing to come; all is present; So that old Eli did see this bloody Tragedy acted, before it was done; saw it done before the signal to Battle was given; did see his Sons slain, whilst the Fleshook was yet in their hands; himself fall, whilst he stood with Samuel; the Israelites slain before they came into the field, the Ark taken whilst it was yet in the Tabernacle; a fad, and kill presentment, whether we consider him as a Father, or a High Priest; a Father looking upon his Sons falling before the Ark, which they stood up and fought for; as a High Priest beholding the people slain, and vanquished, and the Ark, the Glory of God, the Glory of Israel, in the hands of Philistines.  
But the word of the Lord is gone out, and will not return empty and void; for what he says shall be done, and what he binds with an oath is irreversible, and must come to pass, and it is not much material, whether it be accomplished to morrow, or next day, or now instantly, and follow as an Echo to the Prediction, nam una est scientia Futurorum, 
Hier. ad Pammach. adversus errores Joann. Hierosol.  saith S. Hierome, for the knowledge of things to come is one and the same: And now it will be good to look upon these heavy Judgements, and by the terror of them fly from the wrath to come; as the Israelites were cured by looking on the Serpent in the Wilderness; (For even the Justice of God, when it speaks in thunder, makes a kind of melody, when it toucheth, and striketh upon an humble, submissive, yielding heart.) Behold old Eli an High Priest to teach you, who being now within the full march, and show of the Enemy, and of those judgements which came apace towards him like an Armed man not to be resisted, or avoided, and hearing that from God which shook all the powers of his soul, settles, and composes his troubled mind with his consideration, That is was the Lord: in this silences all murmur, slumbers all impatience, buries all disdain, looks upon the hand that strikes, bows, and kisseth it; and being now ready to fall, raiseth himself up, upon this pious and Heavenly resolution Dominus est, It is the Lord, Though the people of Israel fly, and the Philistines triumph, though Ophni and Phinehas fall, Though himself fall backward, and break his neck, Though the Ark be taken, yet Dominus est 
It is the Lord; let him do what seemeth him good.  Which words are a Rhetorical Enthymeme, persuading to humility, and a submissive acquiescience under the Hand, the mighty Hand of God, by his power, his justice, his wisdom, which all meet and are concentred in this, Dominus est, It is the Lord. He is omnipotent, and who hath withstood his power? He is just, and will bring no evil without good cause; He is wise, & whatsoever evil he brings, he can draw it to a good end, and therefore Faciat quod bonum in oculis, let him do what seemeth him good. Or you may observe first, a judicious discovery, from whence all evils come. Dominus est, It is the Lord. Secondly, a well-grounded resolution 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to behave ourselves decently, and fittingly, as under the power, and justice, and wisdom of God, Let him do what seemeth him good. The first is a Theological Axiom Dominus est, It is the Lord, There is no evil in a City, Which he doth not do. The second a conclusion as necessary, as in any Demonstration: most necessary I am sure for weakness to bow to Omnipotency: In a word, The Doctrine most certain, Dominus est, It is the Lord ... All these evils of punishment are from him; and the resolution, (which is as the use and application of it) most safe Faciat quod bonum in oculis, Let him do what seemeth him good.  
Of these we shall speak in their order: and in the prosecution of the first (for we shall but touch upon, and conclude with the last) that you may follow me with more ease, we will draw the lines by which we are to pass, and confine ourselves to these four particnlars, which are most eminent, and remarkable in the story. First, that God's people the true professors may be delivered up to punishment for sin. Secondly, that in these general judgements upon a people, the good many times are involved with the evil, and fall with them. Thirdly, that God's people may be delivered up into the hands of Philistines and Aliens, men worse than themselves. Fourthly, that the Ark, The glory of their profession, may be taken away; These four, and then fix up this inscription, Dominus est, It is the Lord, and when we have acquitted his Justice, and wisdom in these particulars, cast an eye back upon the inscription and see what beams of light it will cast forth for our direction. Dominus est, it is the Lord, etc.  
And in the first place, of Ophni and Phineas, the Text tells us, That they harkened not unto the voice of their Father, because the Lord would destroy them, which word Quia is not casual, but illative, 
2 Ch. v. 25.  and implies not the cause of their sin, but of their punishment: they did not therefore sin, because God would punish them; but they harkened not to the voice of their Father, therefore the Lord destroyed them, as we use to say, the Sun is risen, because it is day; for the day is not the cause of the Suns rising, but the Sun rising makes it day. They were sons of Belial, vessels already fitted for wrath, as we may see, by their many fowl enormities, and therefore were left to themselves, and their sins, and to wrath which at last devoured them! God's Decree, whatsoever it be, is immanent in himself, and therefore could not because of that disobedience and wickedness, which was extrameous and contrary to him, nor could there be any action of Gods, either positive, or negative joined with it, which might produce such an effect, and what need of any such Decree or Action, to make them disobedient, who refuse to hearken to their Father, or to harden them whose sin was now great before the Lord? But we must conclude these two within the 34000. that were slain; And now, 
C 2.17.  the delivering up the people in such a number to the sword may seem to prejudice, and call in question the Justice of God, what? His people? His own people, culled out of the Nations of the earth, must these fall by the sword of these Aliens, these enemies to God, that know not his Name? shall not the Judge of all the earth do right? yes he will: for even in this, Dominus est, It is the Lord.  
For as the Lord once said to his people: 
Es. L. 1.  where is the bill of your mother's divorcement, whom I have put away? so here he may ask, were is that Bill, and obligation, which I made to protect you, if there be any brought forth, we shall find it rather like a Bill of sale, than the conveyance of an absolute Gist: on the one side, God promiseth something on his behalf, on the other, there is something required on ours; Read the Covenant, and contract between them: they had his promise to be their God, and they were the sons of promise; Gal. 4. but then, these promises were conditional, and in every conditional promise, there is an obligation and command: I will be their God, that is his promise, and they shall be my people, that's their duty; and if these meet not, the promise is void, and of none effect. There is not a more true and natural gloss upon this promise, than that of Azariah, in the Chronicles, 
2 Chron 15.2.  Hear you men of Asa, of all Judah, and Benjamin, The Lord is with you whilst you are with him; and if you seek him, he will be found of you, but if you forsake him, he will forsake you, both must go together, or both are lost; for if they will be his people, than his promise is firm, being found in the eternal essence of God, and so as constant, and immutable as Himself: but if they break his commandment, and put it from them: Then to be their God, were not to be their God; then to make good his promises were to vilisy, and debauch them: This were liberalitarem ejus mutare in servitutem, 
Tertul.  to turn his liberality into slavery, prodigally to pour the Precious oil of his goodness into a vessel that could not hold it, to protect and countenance a man of Belial; because he bears the name of an Israelite. And therefore in the 27. of Isaiah at the 11. verse, where God upbraids his people of folly, he presently cancels the bill, and puts them out of his protection, Therefore he that made them will not have mercy upon them, he that sramed them will show them no favour, what though they be the people which he hath purchased? yet he will take no care of his own purchase; though they be his possession, he will give them up, he will not do what he promised, and yet be Truth itself; for if they do not their Duty, he did not promise; Though he made them; though he form them; yet he will not own them, but forsake and abhor his own work; he will surrender them up, and deliver them to Destruction. Even here, upon the forehead of a desolate, and rejected Israelite, we may set up this Inscription, Dominus est, It is the Lord. And now, if we look up upon the Inscription, Dorrinus est, It is the Lord, we may read and interpret it, without a Guide, and learn not to Trifle with God, because he is our Lord, not to mock him with our Hypocrisy, and force in our profession to countenance our Sin, to be worse than Philistines because we are Israelites, to be his Enemies, because we call ourselves God's people; to be worse, than Turks or Jews, because we are Christians. Oh the Happy times of the Infant Church, when the Pagan could find nothing amongst the Christians to accuse, but their Name, and then what Times are These, when you can scarce see any thing commendable in the Christian, but the Name? you may call it, if you please, the dotage, or blindness, of the Church; for the Temple of the Lord, the Temple of the Lord; The Israelite, the Israelite, The Christian, the Christian, the Protestant, the Protestant. This is the Music, with which most use to drive away the evil Spirit, all sad and melancholy thoughts from their hearts: but indeed, (saith Basil) the Devil doth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 doth dance, and leap for joy to hear it, when he hears not withal, the noise of our groan, of our prayers, of our good works, nor the Harmony of a well tuned, and well composed life to go up to Heaven along with it. Oh what pity is it that God should place us in Paradise in a place of pleasure and safety, and we forfeit it, that he should measure out unto us, as it were, by the line, a goodly Heritage, and we pluck up our own hedges, and lay ourselves open to every Wild-Beast, that he should make us his people, and we force him to be our Enemy, in a word, that our Inheritance should beggar us, our security betray us, and our royal prerogative undo us; and further we carry not this consideration.  
2. We pass to the second particular: and in the second place, in so great a number as 34000, I may say, in the whole Commonwealth of Israel (for a Commonwealth may suffer in a far less Number) we cannot doubt, but some there were that fearred the Lord, and shall there be, as the Wiseman speaks, 
2 Eccle. 14. Horat. Gen. 18.23.  the same event to the righteous, and the wicked, to the clean, and him that sacrificeth not? will God Incesto addere integrum, will he destroy, saith Abraham, the righteous with the sinner? This indeed is the depth of God; and a great part of the world have been troubled at the very sight of it; but yet, if we behold it with that light, which Scripture holds forth, we shall find it is not so unfordable, but we shall make some passage through it.  
For, I if we could not make answer; or render any reason, yet this ought not to prejudice, or call in question the justice of it, especially with us men, who are of Dull, and slow understandings, and when we have wearied ourselves in searching out causes of natural things, yet after all our sweat and oil cannot attain so far, as to know, why the grass which is under our feet is green, rather than purple, or of any other colour, and therefore far below those Supernaturals; and most unfit to search out those causes, which God may seem to have locked up in his own Breast; God is the lord of all the earth, 
Psal. 90.4.  and as the Prophet tells us a thousand years in his sight are but as one day, so in the case we now speak of, a thousand, a million, a world of men are with him, but as one man, and when the Lord Chief Justice of Heaven and Earth shall sit to do judgement upon sinners (what Caligula once wantonly wished to the people of Rome) all the world before him have but as it were, one neck, and if it please him, by that jus pleni Dominii, by that full power and Dominion he hath over his creature, 
A Platone dicitur, Deus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 vide Plutarch. quaest convival. l. 8. q. 2.  He may, (as he wellnear did in the Deluge) strike it off at a blow. His judgements are past finding out, and therefore not to be questioned; He is the great Geometrician of the World, which made all things in number, weight, and measure, and hath infinitely surpassed all human inventions whatsoever, and therefore we cannot do him less honour, than Hiero King of Sicily did to Archimede the great Mathematician; for when he saw the Engines which he made, and the marvellous effects which they did produce, he caused it to be proclaimed, that whatsoever Archimede did after affirm, how improbable soever it might seem, yet should not once be called into question, but be received and entertained as a truth; Let the course of things be carried on as it will, let death pass over the door of the Egyptian, and smite the Israelite, let God's Thunder miss the house of Dagon, and shiver his own Tabernacle, yet God is just and true, and every man a liar, that dares but ask the question; why doth He this? Look over the whole Book of Job, and you shall see how Job, and his Friends are tossed up and down on this great deep: For it being put to the question, why Job was thus fearfully handled, his Friend's ground themselves upon this conclusion; that all affliction is for sin, and so lay folly and hypocrisy to his charge, and tell him roundly, that the judgement of God had now found him out, though he had been a close irrigular, and with some art and cunning hid himself from the eye of the World; but Job on the contrary, as stoutly pleads and defends his innocence, his justice, his liberality, and could not attain to the sight of the cause, for which Gods hand was so heavy on him; why should his Friends urge him any more, 
Job 30.32.  or persecute him as God? they dispute in vain, for in their answers, he sees nothing but lies. At last when the controversy could have no issue, 
C. 21.34.  Deus è machina God himself comes down from Heaven, and by ask one question puts an end to the rest, 
Job. 38.2.  who is this, that darkneth Counsel with words without knowledge? condemns job, and his Friends of ignorance, and weakness, in that they made so bold and dangerous attempt, as to seek out a cause, or call his judgement into question.  
2. It may be we may save the labour that we need not move the question, or seek any reason at all, for in these common calamities which befall a people, it may be God doth provide for the Righteous, and deliver him, though we perceive it not. Some examples in Scripture make this very probable; the old World is not drowned, till Noah be stripped, and in the Ark, the shower of fire falls not on Sodom, till Lot be escaped; Daniel and his fellows, though they go away into captivity with rebellious Judah, yet their captivity is sweetened with honours and good respects, in the Land into which they go, and which was a kind of leading captivity captive, they had favour, and were entreated as friends, by their enemies, who had invaded and spoiled them. And may not God be the same upon the like occasions? How many millions of righteous persons have been thus delivered, whose names notwithstanding are not where recorded? some things of no great worth are very famous in the world, when many things of better worth lie altogether buried in obscurity caruerunt quia vale sacro, because they found none who could or would transmit them to posterity. Vixere fortes ante Agamemnona, no doubt, but before and since millions have made the like escapes, though their memory lies raked up, and buried in oblivion.  
But then, suppose the righteous do taste of the same cup of bitterness with the wicked, yet it hath not the same taste and relish to them both, for calamity is not always a whip, 
Calamitas non est poena, militia est minus. Foe lix.  nor doth God always punish them whom he delivers over to the sword; to lose my goods, or life is one thing, and to be punished, another, it is against the course of God's providence and justice, that innocency should come under the lash; 
Gen 28.23.  shall not the Judge of all the earth do right? yes, he shall, and without any breach of his justice, take away that breath of life which he breathed into our Nostrils, though we had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression; for he may do what he will with his own, and take away our goods or lives from us, when and how he pleaseth, because he is Lord over them, and we have nothing which we received not from his hands: God is not always angry, when he strikes, nor is every blow, we feel, given by God the avenger, for he may strike as a Father; and therefore these evils change their complexions, and very natures with the subject upon whom they are wrought, they are, and have the blackness of darkness in the one, but are as Angels, and messengers of light to the other, and may lead the righteous through the valley of death into the land of the living, when the wicked are hewn down by the sword, to be fuel for the fire. What though they both be joined together in the same punishment, as a Martyr, and a Thief in the same chain, 
August. de civitate Dei. l. 1. c. 8.  yet manet dissimilitudo passorum, in similitudine passionum; though the penalties may seem alike, yet the difference is great betwixt the patients, though the world perhaps cannot distinguish them; and death itself, which is a key to open the gates of Hell to the one, may be no the other, what the Rabbles conceive it would have been to Adam, had he not fallen, but osculum pacis a kiss of peace, a gentle, and loving dismission into a better state, to conclude this then, a people, a chosen people, a people chosen out of this choice, God's servants, and friends may be smitten, Josiah may fall in the battle, Daniel may be lead into Captivity, John Baptist may lose his head, and yet we may hold up our inscription Dominus est it is the Lord.  
And now, let us but glance upon the inscription, and so pass to the third particular; and the first sight of it may strike a terror into us, and make us afraid of those sins, which bring these general judgements upon a Nation, as Oppression, Profaneness, Sacrilege, uncleanness (which are as visible in the story of the Israelites, as their punishment) which you see carry a train, which will enwrap our Posterity, our Family, our whole Country and like the Dragon's tail in the Revelation draws down the stars from Heaven, and brings good men, even the Saints of God, within the compass, and smart of them: parce Carthagini, si non tibi, said Tent. to Capula, if you well not be good to yourself, yet spare Carthage, spare your Country, spare the Charets of Israel and Horsemen thereof, spare those Lots, which keep your Sodom from burning, who when a Nation is ready to sink, and dissolve, bear up the pillars of it, know ye not that the Saints shall judge the world saith Saint Paul? who being first acquitted by Christ, shall sit with him as his friends, and assessors, and judge and condemn those sins, which brought them within the reach of God's temporal judgements, and overwhelmed them in the common Calamity and ruin of their Country.  
3. We pass now to the third particular: and if Israel must fall yet let her not fall by the sword of a Philistine. Tell it not in Gath nor publish it in Askelon was part of the Threnody, and Lamentation of David on the like occasion, and he gives his reason; Lest the Daughters of the Philistines rejoice, and the uncircumcised triumph: for besides the misery to have such an enemy rejoice in their misery, 
2 Sam. 1.20.  which will make that affliction, which is but a whip, a Scorpion; this Defeat might seem to cast some disgrace, even upon their Religion; there being nothing more common in the world, then to commend a false Religion by some fatal miscarriage of the professors of the true; to judge of Religion by its State and spreading; to cry it up for Orthodox, when the Church hath peace, and to Anathematise it, as Heretical, when she is Militant, and under the Cross, nothing more common with wavering and carnal men, then to lull themselves asleep in most dangerous Errors, by no other Music, than the cries, and lamentations of those who oppose them: If Ophni and Phinehas fall in the battle, if Eli the High Priest break his neck, if the Ark be taken, than Dagon is god; any thing is god, which is either the work of our hands, or our Fancy. And therefore this may seem not only a rueful, but a strange spectacle, and (as Diogenes said of Harpalus a notorious, but prosperous Thief) testimonium adversus Deum di●ere to stand up as a witness against God himself, 
Tul. de Nat. Deer.  and the Government of the World: 
Tertul.  but the Father will tell us malus interpres Divinae providentiae humane infirmitas, the weak and shallow considerations of men are but bad interpretations of the providence of God, the wit of man, a poor jacob's staff, to take the height and depth, the true and full proportion of it. For as we cannot judge of the Beauty of the Universe because that in regard of the condition of our Mortality, we can be pleased but in part of it, and so cannot at once, at one cast of our eye see the whole, in which those parts which offend us, are at peace; no more can the Soul of man, which is confined within a clod of Earth, judge of the course and Method of that Providence, which is most like itself, in those events which seem most disproportionable, which is then most straight and even, when sinners flourish, and just men are oppressed, most equal when the honest man hath not a mite, and the deceitful a Talon, when the true Prophets are fed with the bread of affliction, and every Balaam hath his wages: when Israel falls, and the Philistin prevails, because we cannot behold him, but in this, or that particular, but can no more follow him in all his ways, than we can grasp the World in the palm of our hands.  
And by this light we may discover, first, That true Religion cannot suffer with the professors of it, but when they are slain with the sword, and wander up and down destitute, afflicted, tormented, is still the same, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, saith Basil, of the same hue and complexion, and in true esteem, more fair and radiant, when her poor witnesses are under a cloud, in disgrace, nay, I will be bold to say, (and whosoever rightly understands the nature of Religion, will never gainsay it) that if it had not one professor breathing on the Earth, not one that did dare to name, and own her (as Eliah once thought, there was but one) yet Religion were still the same, reserved in the surest Archives we can imagine, even in sinu Dei in the Bosom of God, the Lawgiver (Religion being nothing else, but a Defluxion and emanation from him, a beam of his eternal Law) so that, that which makes, and Constitutes a true Israelite, which is one inwardly, as Saint Paul speaks, 
Rom. 1.2.  and in the spirit, hath too much of Immortality, of God in it to fall to the ground, or expire, and be lost with the Israelite. Let not your hearts be troubled, Religion can no more suffer, than God himself.  
2. For secondly, If Religion could suffer, it suffered more by the Priests and people's sin, than the Philistines sword: for by them the name of God and Religion was evil spoken of, 
Isa 52.5.  and that which cannot suffer, was made the object of their malice, and scorn; as Nazianzen spoke of julian's persecution, that it was both a Comedy and Tragedy, 
Invect. secunda  a Comedy full of scoffs and obtrectations, and a Tragedy full of Horror, and yet the Comedy was the most Tragical and bloody of the two. And therefore God Jealous of his Honour, awakes as one out of sleep, returns the scoff upon the Philistine; and makes up the last Act of this Tragedy in his blood; first punisheth the guilty Israelite, and then the Executioner, the text says, He smote them in the hinder parts, and put them to perpetual shame, 
Psal. 78.66,  forcing them to make the similitude of their emrod's in gold, and to send them back with the Ark as an Oblation for their sin; so that you see here God's Method, by which he ordinarily proceeds: first he prepares a sacrifice as we read Zeph. 1.7. that is, appoints his people to slaughter, then bids his Guests as it is in the same verse, sanctificat vocatos suos, as the vulgar read it, sanctifies, that is, sets apart these Philistines, that they may be as Priests to kill and offer them up, and when this is done, God falls upon the Priests themselves, and makes them a sacrifice; 
Zeph. 2.4.  Gaza shall be forsaken, Askelon a desolation, they shall drive out Ashdod at Noonday, and Ekron shall be rooted out: and now we may well conclude; that God is just in all his ways, and righteous in all his judgements, and fix up our inscription upon this particular also: when Israel is delivered up into the hand of the Philistine; D minus est; it is the Lord.  
And now, if we look well upon the inscription, we shall find it to be like the pillar of the cloud, Exod. 14. a cloud of darkness to the Philistine, but giving light to the Israelite. And 1. the Philistine hath no reason to boast of this, as a preferment, that he is made the instrument of God in the execution of his judgements upon his people; for we shall find that it hath been one of the most dangerous, and fatal offices in the World, Nabuchadnezzar was so, God called him to it, Jer. 21. Go up against the Land of Merathaim, or of Rebels, and he did lead Israel into Captivity, but hear the word of the lord How is the Hammer of the Lord cut a sunder, and broke; Jerusalem is taken, but Shishak also shall fall, and in the 28. of that Prophecy, that cup which was sent to Jerusalem, and the Cities of Judah, and the kings thereof, and put into their hands to drink, at the 15. ver. is afterward put into the hand of the king of Shishak to drink, and to be drunken, to spew, and fall; Thus saith the Lord, you shall certainly drink it, 
Jer. 25.27.28.  and he gives the reason, at the next verse: for lo, I begin to bring evil upon the City, which is called by my Name, or where my Name is called upon; and shall you go free, shall you go utterly unpunished? if you can raise such a hope, then hear a voice from Heaven; which shall dash it to pieces; I have said it, and I will make it good; you shall not go unpunished v. 29. I have begun with my own house, but I am coming towards you in a Tempest of fire, to devour yours, I have shaken my own Tabernacle, and the house of Dagon shall not, cannot stand. For they, whom God appoints, as Executioners of justice upon his people, are like the image, which the Tyrant saw in his dream, Daniel the 2. partly iron, and partly clay partly strong, and partly broken. v. 42. First God finds them apt; and fit, full of malice, and gall, (for whose hands were fit to fling stones at David, then his, whose mouth was full of curses? who fit to keep God's people in bondage then a Pharaoh? or to lead them into Captivity, than he, whom God did afterwards drive into the fields amongst the Beasts? who could have crucified the Lord of life, but the Jews?) and finding them apt and fit, he permits them, giveth these serpents leave to spit their poison, gives these Hangmen leave to do their Office; This, his not hindering them, was all the warrant, and commission they had; G●up against the Land can be no more than this, I know you are upon your March, and I will not stand in your way, to stay you, but you shall do me service against your wills, with that malice which my Soul hates; (for we cannot think, that God inspired the Tyrant, or sent a Prophet to him with the message to bid him do that, which he threatens to punish) no: he doth but permit them, he gives them leave to be his Executioners, and in this his permission is their strength, they pursue the Israelite, and lay on sure strokes; their malice is carried on in a Chariot of four wheels, made up of cruelty, impatience, ambition, impudence, and drawn as Bernard expresses it) with two wild horses, 
Bern. in Cant. Ser. 39  earthly power, and secular pomp, and now they drive on furiously, and God is as one asleep, as one that marks them not, because he will not hinder them, but within a while he will awake; strike off their Chariot wheels, and restrain them, say to them, as he doth to the swelling Sea, Hitherto, you shall go, and no farther, and them they are but clay, they crumble, and fall to nothing. Why should the Philistine boast himself in his mischief? the goodness of God endureth yet daily, and is every day, 
Psal. 51.2.  and in every age the same, and it is no concluding argument, that we please God. when we are employed in the punishment of those that offend him, nor can we thus argue, no more than we can attribute reason, and wisdom to an Ass, because it pleased God once to make use of so contemptible a Creature, to reprove the folly of a Prophet.  
Secondly, it gives light to the Israelite, by which he may order his steps, with more caution and wariness; For as our Saviour says we may make a friend of Mammon, and Saint Chrysostom adds even of the Devil himself, so may a true Israelite make a friend of a Philistine, and they who survive, may learn by the 34000. who were slain, who being dead, yet speak unto them and us, to fly from the wrath of God, who when we rebel against him, can punish us by far worse than ourselves. Oh, who would not look upon those sins, as the most horrid spectacles in the World, for the punishment of which, God should cull out such instruments, that are under a greater curse, fit for the fire then those on whom they are used? If we go on and continue in sin, 
Joel 2.25.  God may send out his great Army against us, his Grasshoppers, his Cankerworm, and his Caterpillar, and eat up our Harvest; 
Habbac. 2.11.  He may raise up every Creature, even the timber out of the wall to speak against us; and if we still stand out against him, he may raise up some accursed Alien, some Philistine, some child of Perdition to wreak his vengeance upon us; who would not be afraid of that cup of bitterness, which must be brought to him by the hand of a Philistine? and forsake sin, if not for the punishment, yet for the executioner? A sad sight it was to see David the Father whipped for his Adultery, by his Son, and David the King chastised by his Subject, who should have kissed his Feet; 
2 Sam. 16.11.  (he himself says, The Lord bid him do it) to see a whole Nation carried away Captive by a man, who did afterwards degenerate into a Beast, to see so many thousand Israclites fall at the feet of Idolaters, and servants of Dagon; but the inscription is indelible, what is written, is written, Dominus est, it is the Lord.  
4. But now in the last place: not only the Priests, and the people, but the Ark itself was delivered up: the Ark of his Covenant, and the Ark of his strength; 
Ps. 132. Exod. 37. 1 Sam. 4.  from whence God gave his Oracles, wherein were the Tables of the Law, and Testimony written by the Finger of God, the Glory of God, as Phinchas' his wife calls it, even this was made a prey to these cursed Aliens, brought in Triumph into the house of Dagon, at the sift Chapter. And here we may lay our hands upon our mouth, once have I spoken, yea thrice, but here is a great depth, Horror and amazement; and we may fear to proceed any further. What? defeat his own command? deliver up his own Ordinance; what? deliver up his strength into Captivity, and his Glory into the enemy's hands? yes, even here, Dominus est it is the Lord. God did it, because he suffered it to be done, did it, tanquam dormiens as one asleep, withdrew himself: when he awakes, than he will lift up his hand, and it shall fall upon the Philistine, and bruise him to pieces; than it shall be his power and irresistible Arm, now it is but his connivance, and permission. What the rage of the Persecutor, what the Philistine, what the Devil doth, God is said to do, and in many places of Scripture, it is called his will: ●. quia volens permittit, because he willingly permits it, for should he interpose his power, it could never be done, 2. Because he foretells and threatens it, and binds it with an Oath, as he doth here, which he would never do, if he meant to hinder it. Lastly, Though he will not the thing itself, as murder, and Sacrilege, and the Profanation of his Ark yet notwithstanding some good will of God is accomplished by it; For even in the most horrid Execution, some good will of God may be accomplished, he delivers up Christ to be Crucified, but his will was to save the World, and he that was willing his Son should suffer, yet hated the Jew, and for that very fact made their house desolate, he found them in the gall of bitterness, and left them so, to do his will when they broke it; the malice was their own, and God suffered them to breathe it forth, but the issue, and event was an Act of God's will, of his wisdom, and power; And thus he delivers up the Ark, but it was to preserve it, as Agesilaus abrogated the Laws of L●curgus, that he might establish them, ut semper essent aliquan●o non fuerunt, 
Valer. Max. l. 7. c. 2  saith the Historian, they were laid aside awhile, that they might remain, and be in force for ever; so God suffers his Ark to be lead into Captivity, that it might conquer, first Dagon, and then the Israelite, strike off his hypocrisy, and work, and fashion him to the will of God, of whom the Ark was but a representation; suffered it to be removed for a time, that it might be restored again both to its place and dignity.  
For we may observe in these Israelites, what (if we could be impartial) we may soon discover in ourselves in the use of those helps, which God hath graciously afforded us: They both honoured and dishonoured the Ark, gave it too high an esteem, and yet undervalved it, they called it their God, and made it their Idol. A strange contradiction: yet so visible in the course and progress of carnal worshippers, that he that sees them in their race, would think they ran two contrary ways at once were very Religious, and very profane, at once did invade Heaven with violence, and yet drive furiously to the lowest pit.  
And first, we have just reason to imagine, that when the Ark was taken up upon the Levites shoulders, and they sang let God arise (which was the set and constant form) they spoke not by metaphor, but as if indeed they had their God on their shoulders: for in the fourth Chapter, when Israel was smitten at the 2. ver. let us bring say they, the Ark of the Covenant, at the third: The Ark is brought out, and now victory is certain, for when it cometh amongst us, it willsave us say they. But, as Epictetus once taught his Scholars, that they should so behave themselves, that they might be an Ornament to the Arts, and not the Arts unto them; so the integrity of the Jew should have been a defence to the Ark, and not the Ark made use of, to stand up for a profane impenitent Israelite. For what a wile, and sophism of Satan is this, to persuade a polluted sinful soul, that when he hath scornfully rejected the substance; (that piety which should make him strong in the Lord) at the last, in the time of Danger, and the furious approach of the enemy, a shadow should stand forth, and fight for him; that when he had broken the Law and Testimonies, not regarded the Oracles, forget all the Mercies of God, and robbed him of his glory, that then, I say, the shell, the Ark, the Shittim wood should be as the great power of God to maintain his cause: certainly, if this be not a wile of the Devil, I know no snare he hath, that can catch us: if this be not to deceive ourselves, I shall think there is no such thing, as error in the World,  
But again in the second place, and on the contrary, as they did Deificare Arcam, as the father speaks, even deify the Ark, attribute more unto it, than God ever gave it, or was willing it should have; so they did also depretiare vilify, and set it at naught: called it their strength, their glory, their God, but employed it in base offices than ever the Heathen did their gods, who called upon them, to teach them, to steal and deceive: Not long since their Priests committed rapes at the door of the Tabernacle, 
Pulcra laverna, Da mihi fallere etc. Hor.  and now they expect the Ark should help those profane miscreants, who had so polluted it. Oh, the Ark, the Ark, the glory of God, that is able to becalm, and slumber a Tempest, to bind the hands of the Almighty, that he shall not strike; to scatter an Army; to make kings to fly, to crown a sinful Nation with victory, to bring back an adulterer Lanreate, a Ravisher with the spoils of a Philistine, that shall be a buckler, a protection to defend them, who but now defiled it; that shall be their God, which they made their Abomination: bring forth the Ark and then what are these uncircumcised Philistines? God heard this, saith the Psalmist, 
Psal. 78.59.  and was wroth, and greatly abhorred Israel, and seeing that all the cry was for the Ark, no thought for the statutes and testimonties, which lay shut up in the Ark, and oblivion together; seeing the sign of his presence had quite shut him out, of whose presence it was a sign, seeing it so much honoured, so much debased, so sanctified, and so polluted, he delivers up the people, and the Ark together into the Philistines hands, that they might learn more from the Ark in the Temple of Dagon, than they did, when it stood in their own Tabernacle, learn the right use of it now, which they had so foully abused, when they enjoyed it: in a word; strikes off their embroidery, that they might learn to be more glorious within.  
I remember, there is a constitution in the Imperial Law, st seudatarius rem Fevae etc. if he that holdeth in see farm useth contrary to the will, and intent of the Lord, redit a D●menum, it presently returns into the Lord's power. And we may observe that the great Emperor of Heaven and earth proceeds after the same manner, with his Liegemen, and homagers the Jews: for when they fell to Idolatry, 
Hos. 2.9.  and bestowed the corn and the wine, which God gave them, upon Baal, then presently God takes to himself away the corn in the time thereof, and the ●tne in the season thereof, & aufer am lanam & lanam, I will recover, ●aith he, my flax and my wool, recover it as my own, thus unjustly usurped and detained by these Idolaters. I will cause all her mirth to cease, her fast-days, her New-Moons, her Sabbaths, as if he had said, I will defeat my own purpose. I will nullify my Ordinance, I will abolish my own Law, I will put out the light of Israel, which to my people hath been, but as a meteor, to make them wander in the crooked ways of their own Imaginations. I will deliver the Creature from the bond of corruption, which seems to groan, and travel in pain under these abuses of profane men; it being a kind of servitude and Captivity to the Creature to be dragged, and haled by the lusts, and fancies, and disordinate affections of profane men, to be dragged to the drudgery of the Gibeonices, which I made to be as free, as the Israelite himself, to be in bondage and slavery under the pride, and extravagant desires, under the most empty, and brutish fancies of corrupt men; Auferam; I will take them away, from such unjust Usurpers. What should a Prodigal do with wealth? what should a Robber do with strength? what should a boundless oppressor do with power? what should Ophni and Phinehas, Adulterers, Oppressors, a sinful Nation, a people laden with iniquity, do with the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord? I will begin, and I will also make an end. 
1 Sam. 3.12.  This glory shall departed from Israel, and the Ark shall be taken, and here, when the Ark is taken, and the glory departed from Israel; the word, and inscription is still the same, Dominus est: it is the Lord.  
And now, to apply this last particular; shall I desire you to look up upon the inscription, it is the Lord? Behold the Prophet Jerem, hath done it to my hand. Ite ad Stlo. Go to my palace, which was in Shiloh; where I set my Name at the first, 
Jer. 7.12.  and see what I did to it for the wickedness of my people. Go unto Shiloh, and there purge the corruption, the plague out of your hearts, wash off the paint of your hypocrisy with the blood of these 34000. Israclites. Look upon the Ark, but not so to be dazzled, and dote on the glory and Beauty of it, as to lose the sight of yourselves, and those sins which pollute it. Look upon the word and Sacraments, but not to make them the non ultrà of your worship, and to rest in them, as in the end, to eat, and wash, and hear, and no more, to say the word of God is sweet, and not to taste and digest it, to attribute virtue and efficacy to the Sacrament, and yet be fit to receive the Devil, than the sop; not at once to magnify, and profane it, to call it the bread of life, and make it poison; not to come near the Ark; not to handle these Holy things without feeling; in a word; Not to make them first an Idol; and then nothing in this World.  
For (my brethren) it is a very dangerous thing thus to over-value those things, which in themselves are highly to be esteemed, and are above comparison with any thing in this World: for when we make them more than they are, we in effect make them less than they are, and at last nothing, of no use at all; nay we make that a snare unto us, which was made a Help; and as every Creature within the bounds of its own nature is useful, and profitable, so also these external helps, the Ark of God, the word and Sacraments of the Church, are great blessings, and highly to he Honoured, whilst we use them to that end, for which they were first Instituted, whilst we walk within that compass, and circle, which God hath drawn, according to that form which he hath showed us. That Jew deserves not the name of an Israclite, that should by word or gesture dishonour the Ark, when we see, he was not permitted to touch it; but then, he that of a sign of the presence of God, in the day of Battle, shall make it his God, is so much a Jew, that he deserves to be fling out of the Synagogue. And that Christian, that bows not to the majesty of the word, and receives it not as a letter, and epistle from God, as Saint Augustin calls it; that esteems not of the Sacraments, as those visible words, the signs and pledges, and conveyances of his great love, and favour to us in Christ, hath too little of the Christian, to make him so much, as one of the visible Church; but he that is high in his Panegyric, and ever calling: speak Lord, for thy servant heareth; and then lies down to sleep, or if he be awake, is only active in the denying the power of that word, he so much magnified, and called for, and thinks he hath done all duties, all offices to God, if he do but give him the ear, (which is to trust in the Ark more than in God) He that shall make the Sacrament first an Idol, and then a seal, to shut up Treason in silence, as the Jesuit, or use it as an Opiate once or twice in the year, to quiet his conscience, his viaticum, and provision rather to strengthen him in sin, then against it; he that shall thus magnify, and thus debase it, and thus exalt, and thus tread it under foot, is guilty of Heresy, saith Erasmus, which is not properly an Heresy, but yet such a kind of Heresy, which may make him Anathema, though he be of the Church, and at last sever him, as a Goat from the Sheep. And now let us Judge, not according to the appearance, but let us Judge righteous judgement, or rather (if you please do but judge according to the appearance. Cast an eye upon these unhappy times, which if they be not the last, yet so much resemble those, which, as we are told, shall Usher in the great Day, that we have great reason, to look about us, as if they were the last; weigh I say, the controversies, the business of these times, and concerning those Duties, and Transactions, which constitute and consummate a Christian, you shall find as great silence in our Disputes, as in our lives and practice. The great Heat and Contention is concerning Baptism and the Lords Supper, and the Government and Disciplien of the Church, 'tis not, whether we should deny ourselves, and abstain from all fleshly lusts, but whether we may wash or not, whether eat or not, whether Christ may be conveyed into us in Water, or in Bread? whether he hath set up a chair of infallibility at Rome, or a Consistory at Geneva, whether he hath Ordained one Pope, or a Million? what digladiations? what Tragedies about these, and if every particular Fancy be not pleased, the cry is, as if Religion were breathing out its last, when as true Religion consists not principally in these; and these may seem to have been passed over to us, rather as favours and Honours, and Pledges of his Love, then strict and severe Commands. That we must wash, and eat, are Commands, but which bring no Burden, or hardship with them, the performance of them being more easy, as no whit repugnant to flesh and blood; It is no more, but wash and be clean, Eat in remembrance of the Greatest Benefit, that ever mankind received. All the difficulty is in the performance of the vow, we make in the one, and the due preparation of the soul for the other, which is the subduing of the lusts, and Affections, the Beatifying of the inward man, which is truly, and most properly the service of Christ, which is the Ark of our Ark, the Glory of our Glory, and the Crown of all those outward Advantages, which our Lord and Master hath been pleased to afford us; 
Mic. 6.6.  we may say with the Prophet Micah, wherewith shall we come before the Lord? or bow ourselves before the High God? will he be pleased with the diligence of our ear, with our Washing and Eating, and answer with him at the eighth verse: He hath showed thee oh man, what he doth require, to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk Humbly with thy God. Ite ad locum meum Siolo. Go to my palace in Silo, and there learn to disdeceive yourselves by their Example, lest, if all your Religion be shut up, with theirs, in the Ark, all in outward Ceremony and Formality God may strike both us, and the Ark we trust to, recover and call back those Helps and Gracious advantages from such prodigal usurpers. For when all is for the Ark, nothing for the God it represents; when we make the Pulpit our Ark, and chain all Religion to it; when the lips of the Preacher, which should preserve knowledge, and be as a Ship (as Basil speaks, to convey that Truth, which is more precious, than the Gold of Ophir, 
Orat. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  brings nothing but Apes and Peacocks, loathsome and ridiculous Fancies? when the Hearers must have a Song for a Sermon and that too many times, much out of Tune, when both Hearer and Speaker act a part, as it were upon a stage, even till they have their Exit, and go out of the World; when we will have no other Laver, but that of Baptism, no bread but that in the Eucharist; when we are such Jewish Christians, as to rely on the shell and outside, on External formalities and performances, more empty and less significant, less effectual than their Ceremonies; we have just cause to fear, that God may do unto us, as he did unto Shilo; or as he threatened the same people Amos 8. Send a Famine into the land, not a Famine of bread, but of Hearing the word (and such a famine we may have, though our loaves do multiply, though Sermons be our daily Bread) that he may deprive us of our Sacraments, or deliver them up to Dagon, to be polluted by superstition, or to be trodden under foot by prophaners (which of the two is the worst) that we may even loath, and abhor that in which we have taken so vain, so unprofitable, so pernicious delight; and condemn ourselves, and our own foul ingratitude, and with sorrow and confusion of Face subscribe to this Inscription, Dominus est, It is the Lord.  

Concl.  And now we have settled the inscription, Dominus est, it is the Lord, upon every particular; which may seem at first not so well placed; but as the head of Jupiter upon the body of a Tyrant; a merciful God plucking up, and destroying his own people, fight for the Philistine against the Israelite, as if a dead Israelite, were of a sweeter savour in his Nostrils, than a dead Philistine, and the Ark were better placed in the House of Dagon, then in his own Tabernacle: but look again, and consider it aright, and you will say, it was rightly fixed. For the ways of God are equal, 
Ezek. 18.29.  but ours are unequal, and nothing but the inequality of our own, maketh his seem so; whilst he remains the same God in the fire, and in the Earthquake, which he was in the still voice, the same when he slew them, and when his light shined upon their, his Justice takes not from his Mercy, nor his mercy from the equity of his Justice; but he is just when he binds up, and merciful, when he wounds us; his justice, his wisdom, his mercy are over all his works. The same God that overthrew Pharaoh in the Red sea, that slew great and mighty kings; did deliver up his own people, good and bad; did deliver them into their Enemy's hands; did deliver up the Ark to Dagon, for his Justice, his wisdom, and mercy endure for ever.  
And now, having gone along with old Eli in his discovery, we cannot but take up his resolution, let him do what seemeth him good: and we called it Elies use, or application of his Doctrine; and let us (for conclusion) make it ours; and learn to kiss the Son lest he be angry; nay, to kiss him, to bow before him when he is angry, to offer him up a peace-offering, our wills, of more power than a Hecatomb, than all our numerous Fasts, and Sermons to appease his wrath, and to bring peace, and order again into the World; that our wills being his, being subdued by his Spirit, and delivered up into that blessed Captivity, to be under his Beck, and Command, they may stand out against all our natural, and carnal desires, and check and quiet them; which is the truest surrendry we can make, and makes us of the same mind with Christ, who would not saith Hilary, 
Quod vult office did ipsum concedi sibi non vult. De Trin. l. 10.  have the granted which he would have done, did not refuse the Cup, but desired it might pass from him: that as Saul, when he was struck to the ground, cried out, Lord what wouldst thou have me do? so may we, when his hand is upon us, in our trembling and astonishment; say, Lord what wouldst thou have us to suffer? Fiat voluntas, Thy will be done, though it be in our destruction. By this we testify our consent with him, this is our friendship with God, and they who (as Abraham was) are God's friends, have idem velle, & i●em nolle, will, and nill the same things with him, are ready Sequi Deum, to follow God in all his ways, when he seems to withdraw, and when he comes near us, when he shines upon us, and when he thunders, in what he commands, and what he permits, in what he absolutely will do, and what he makes way for, and will suffer to be done, to follow him in all, 
Sen. ep. 96.  and bow before him, Non pareo Deo, sed assentior, & ex antmo illum, non quia necesse est, sequor, saith the Heathen Sencca; I do not only obey God, and do what he would have me, but I am of his mind, and whatsoever is done in Heaven and earth, is done as I would have it; The world is never out of frame with me, I see nothing but order, and Harmony; no disturbance; no crossnes in the course of things; for that wisdom which is the worker of all things, is more moving them any m●…on, 
Wisd. 7.  and passeth, and goeth through them all, reacheth from one end to another mightily, and draws every motion, and action of men to that end, in which if we could see them, we should wonder and cry out, so, so, thus we would have it. The stubornest knee may be made to bow, and Obedience may be constrained, Balaam obeyed God, but it was against his will, but the true Israelite doth it with joy, and readiness, and though it be a blow, counts it as a favour; For he that gave it, hath taught him an art, 
Psal. 115.3.  to make it so Goa doth whatsoever he will in Heaven and in Earth, saith the Psalmist, God wills it, and doth it, and when ●is done, our will must bow before it, and we must say with old Eel, Faciat quod bonum in oculis, let him do what he will. Take the will of God in those several ways, the Scripture, and the light of reason hath discovered it to us, and in every kind we must subscribe, and what he doth we must will, and what he will suffer, must seem good in our eyes, and there is voluntas naturalis inclinationis & aesiderti, that desire and inclination which naturally was in him, to work and wish the good of his Creature, which is the proper, and natural effect of his goodness for he Created us, for our good, and his Glory; and there is another will, voluntas P●aec●pti, the Law and Ordinance, which he hath laid upon his Creature, which is every where in Scripture called his will; for as he Ordained his Creature for good, so he made known unto it the means, by which it should attain to that good for which it was at first Ordained. Now we cannot but yield in these, for can therebe any Question made whether we will set a fiat, and subscribe to our own good? It is strange that any man should be unwilling that God should love him; unwilling to be happy, or loathe that way, which so great love hath designed to bring him to this end. The number is but few of those that do this will; but 'tis the voice of the whole Christian World, that this will should be done. But there is yet further, as we may observe, voluntas accasionata, a secondary, and Consequent will in God, not natural, but occasioned, and to which he is in a manner constrained. The severity of God, the miseries, and afflictions of this life; induration of wilful and stubborn sinners, eternal pains laid up in the World to come, are the effects of this occasioned will. Besides this, there is voluntas permissionis his permissive will, by which he doth give way so far, as he thinks good to the intents, and actions of evil men: He doth not command them, He doth not secretly suggest them, nor doth he incline the Agents to them, nor incline the Philistines to invade that Land, which is none of theirs, but by his infinite prescience, foreseeing all actions, and events possible, determines (for reasons best known to himself) to give way to such actions, which he saw would be done, if he gave way; and to these two, we cannot but yield, unless we will deny him to be God, for if we believe him just, or wise, we cannot but say Fiat, let him do what he will; let him be angry, and let him carry on his anger in what ways, and by what means he please; He is our Father, 
O Foelicem, cui Deus dignatur irasci, Te●tul.  and loves us, and if we will be enemies to ourselves, he doth but an act of Justice, and of mercy, if he use the rod, what though he give line to wicked men, to do that which his soul hates, to suffer that to be done which he forbids? He permits all the evil that is done in the World, if he did not permit it, it could not be done, and if he did not permit evil, Obedience were but a name, for what praise is it, not to do that, which I cannot do? whatsoever evil he suffers, his Wisdom is always present with him (for he is Wisdom itself) and can draw that evil which he but suffers to be done, and make it serve to the Advancement of that good which he will do, he will make it as the hand of justice to punish offenders, and execute his will, and make it as his rod, or Discipline to teach sinners in the way, if we could once subdue our wills to that will of his, which is visible in his precepts, if we could answer love with love, and love him, and keep his Commandments, we should have no such averseness from the other two, no such dislike, if he do what he is forced to do, or permit that to be done, which he hath condemned already: If we do whatsoever he commands us, and be his friends, what is it to us, though he bind the sweet influences of the Pleyades, 
Job. 38.31. Deut. 28.3. Job 38.38.  or lose the bonds of Orion? though he make the Heavens as brass, and the Earth as iron? though the clods cleave fast together, and the clouds distil not upon them? what is it to us, if he beat down his own Temples, when the tower of Babel reacheth up to Heaven? if the black darkness be in Goshen, and the Egyptians have light; if fools sport and triumph in their folly, and the whip be laid on the back of the innocent? what is it to us how, or where he casts about his Hailstones, and coals of fire?  
Si Fractus illabatur Orbis  
Impavidos ferient ruinae. 
Horat. ●d.   
In all these sad and dismal events, in these judgements, which fall cross with our judgement, and (as the eye of flesh looks upon them) to the mind of God himself, in all these perplexities, these riddles of providence, the friend of God, is still his friend, and favours, nay, applauds whatsoever he doth, or is pleased to suffer to be done, which he would not suffer, did not his Justice and Wisdom require it, which is able to make the most crooked paths strait, to fill every valley and levelly every mountain, to work good out of evil, and so make all those seeming extuberancies, that which to us seemed disorder, and confusion, that which our ignorance wondered at, smooth and plain and even at the last; Dominus est, it is the Lord, when that word is heard, let every mouth be stopped, or let it declare his Glory amongst the Nations, and his wonders among the people; at that word, let every knee bow both of things in Heaven, and things in earth; let men and angels say Amen, his will be done, Dominus est, It is the Lord, it is the antecedent, and the most natural consequent, or conclusion, that can be drawn from it, is this of old Eli the High Priest; Faciat quod bonum in oculis, let him do what seemeth him good.  
To conclude then: when we are thus wrought and fashioned to his hand and will, thus meek and yielding to his Sceptre; when we follow him in all his ways, and not question, but obey his Providence, which is the bridle of the World, and fit for no hands but his, when with old Eli here, we join our Faciat; with his fecit, and are willing he should do, whatsoever is done; when the Lord thunders from Heaven, and shoots his arrows abroad; when we can look upon them sticking in our own sides, 
Psa. 19  and say; thus, thus it should be, Judicia Domini vera, the Judgements of the Lord are true, and righteous altogether, than we have the spirit of God and we have the will of God, and these arrows will be to us, as Jonathans' were to David, as signs, and warning to fly from some danger near at hand, that those evils we suffer may work that patience, which may make us Cooperarios Dei (as Tertullian spoke of Job) fellow workers with God, 
Tertul. De patiented.  and join us with him in the conquest of those temptations, which they bring along with them; that our patience may beget experience, how weak and frail we are, when we are moved, and guided by our own will, and this experience; Hope which being founded on the promises of the God of truth, can neither deceive us, nor make us ashamed, a hope that our Ark will return, and God will restore to us all those helps and advantages, which he shall think necessary for us in this our warfare. He that hath the will of God, hath this hope, built upon his power, and wisdom, which always accompanies his will; he that hath the will of God, hath what he will; hath power, and wisdom, in the strength of which we shall be able to lift up our heads, in the midst of all the busy noise the World shall make, be steadfast, and immovable, when the tempest is loudest, and when our sun shall be darkened, and the stars fall from Heaven, when there shall be Sects, and divisions, and great perplexity, when our Ark shall be taken, and the glory depart from Israel, look upon all with an eye of Charity, or as Erasmus speaks, with an Evangelical eye, and walk on in a constant course of piety, and contention with those infirmities, which so easily beset us, beating down sin in ourselves, though we cannot destroy error in our brethren, and so becomes as Nazianzen once spoke of his people of Nazianzum, like the Ark of Noah, and by this our spiritual Wisdom, escape that deluge, and Inundation of Contention, which hath near overflowed, and swallowed up the whole Christian World, and so walk upon these floods, and waves, Christ himself going before, till we rest upon our Ararat, our holy Hill, that new Jerusalem, that City of peace, where there will be no envy, no debate, no Sects, no Divisions, no contentions, no wars, no rumour of wars, but love, and peace, and unity, and joy, and unconceivable bliss for evermore.   

THE THIRD SERMON.  COLLOSS. 26. 
As you have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him.  
NOthing more familiar in Scripture, then to compare a Christian man's life to a walk, and Christianity to a way, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, According to the way, which they call Heresy, so worship I the God of my Fathers, saith Saint Paul, 
Acts. 24.14.  and the resemblane fitteth very well. For, as they, who travel in the way, meet with variety of Objects, it may be a plant or Flower (saith Saint Basil) it may be a Serpent, 
In Psal. 2.  or a Lion; objects to delight them, and objects to terrify them, all to retard, and detain them, to stay them longer from their journey's end; so in the course of Religion, in our way to happiness, every step is with danger, our paths are ensnared, an our Progress entangled: if a plant, or Flower, 
Prov. 22.13.  the pomp and glory of the world stay us not, yet there is Leo in via, a Lion in the way, difficulties, 
2 Cor. 7.5.  which we must struggle with, and there are Fears in the way, fightings without, and Terrors: Intur causus ambulamus, saith Austin, we walk in the midst of ruin, where every object may prove a Temptation, and every Temptation an overthrow, nay 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Isidor: with our ruin about us: not only the way, but our feet be slippery.  
We need not go fare for instance; for every man may find one in himself; but we will take this (which Saint Paul hath put into our hands) of the Colossians; the occasion of my Text; and of them Saint Paul professes in this Epistle, That they had made a fair onset in Christianity; that they were forward in their way; he beholds them with joy, and rejoiceth to see them walk, to see their order, and their steadfast Faith in Christ, in the verse before my Text: but withal perceiving some uneven steps, and dangerous swervings, and declinations from the will of Christ, and those ways, which his Wisdom drew out in the Gospel, he calls loud upon them; and at once commends, and instructs them, arms them against those false Teachers, who by their mixtures and additions, had made it another Gospel; commends them for their choice of their way, and directs them how to walk. In the way they were, but there was Philosophus in viâ, 
V●s. 8.  at the Eighth, the Philosopher in their way, with his subtleties to spoil and rob them; and then the word is, Nen o vos depraedetur, let no man make a spoil of you, draw you by force out of the way, by the vain deceit of Philosophical speculations; And there was Angelus in viâ, an Angel in the way, with his glorious excellencies to amaze them, v. 18. and here the word is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Let no man defraud you of your reward, of that I berty, which Christ hath granted you, which makes a fair and open way to you, without the mediation of Angels. Last of all, There was Lex in viâ, there was the Law in the way, with her shadows and ceremonies to detain them, and there word is nemo vos judicet, Let no man judge or condemn you of a Holiday, or new Moon, or the Sabbath Day, v. 16. Hearken not to the Philosopher, but to him in whom dwelleth all the Fullness of the Godhead bodily, v. 9 and that wisdom which the Holy Ghost teacheth. Bow not to an Angel; but to him, who is head of all Principality, and Power. v. 10. And look not unto the Law, which is but a shadow; but to the Body, the Truth and solidity of the things themselves, which is in Christ. These three are all, Et haec tria unum sunt, and these Three are One, I may say, these Three Cautions and directions are but one, at least drawn up and collected in this one, which I have read unto you; Three several lines, but meeting in this Centre, sicut accepist is, walk in Christ, as you have received him, which is as a light from Heaven, to direct us in our way, that we be not taken by the deceit of Philosophy; That we stoop not to the glory of Angels; That we catch not at the shadow, when we should lay hold on the substance: In a word, This keeps us close to Christ, and his Doctrine, which must not be mixed, or blended, either with the Law, or Philosophy, or that voluntary Humility, and worshipping of Angels, which is Idolatry; As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him.  
At the very hearing of which Exhortation, I know every man will say, That it is good and wholesome counsel, well fitted and applied by Saint Paul to the errors, and distempers of that Church, to which he writ, but not so proper, nor appliable to ours; For so far are we from being ensnared with Philosophy, that we see too many ready to renounce both their sense, and reason, to be less than men, nay to be inferior to the beasts, neither to discourse, nor see; not to see, what they see; nor to know what they cannot be ignorant of, that they may be Christians, as if Christ came to put out our eyes, and abolish our Reason. And for voluntary worship, there is no fear of that in them, who will scarce acknowledge any Obligation and can with ease turn a Law into a Promise: will that profane person ever stoop to an Angel, who is thus familiar with God himself? And the Law; it goes for a Letter, a Title, and no more; for Ceremonies, they were but shadows, but are now monsters. Christ in appearance left us two, and but two, and some have dealt with them, as they used to do with monsters, exposed them to scorn, and fling them out; so that this Counsel now in respect of us, will not appear, as an Apple of Gold with Pictures of silver, 
Prov. 25.31.  but may seem to be quite out of its place and Season. But yet, let us view it once again, and we shall find, that it is a general Prescript looking forward, and appliable to every Age of the Church, an Antidote against all Errors and deviations, and if we take it as we should, will 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, look round upon all, and either prevent, or purge out all error whatsoever: For though our errors be not the same with theirs, yet they may proceed from the same ground, and be as dangerous, or worse: peradventure, we may be in no danger of Philosophy, but we may be of ourselves, and our self-love may more ensnare us, than their subtleties can do: we may be too stiff to bow to an Angel; but our eyes may dazzle at the Power, and excellency of men, and we may be carried about from Doctrine to Doctrine, from error to error with every breath of theirs, as with a mighty wind; and though we stand out against the Glory of an Angel, yet we may fall down and miscarry by the example of a mortal man: in a word, we may defy all Ceremonies, and yet worship our own imaginations, which may be less significant than they.  
Let us then, as the Apostle elsewhere speaks, suffer this word of Exhortation; let us view, and handle this Word of Life, and it will present us with these two things.  
1. A Christian man's Duty in these words, Ambulate in Christo, walk in Christ.  
Secondly, The Rule by which we must regulate our motion, and be directed in our walk, sicu● accepistis, we must so walk in Him, as we have received him, which two, stand in flat opposition to two main Errors of our life. For either we receive Christ, and not walk in him, or walk in him, but not with a Sicut, not as we have received him; Of these in their order.  
As you have received, etc.  
In the handling of the first, we shall point, and level our discourse at these two particulars. 1. Show you, That Christianity is not a lazy, idle Profession, a sitting still, or standing, a speculation, but a walk. 2ly, Wherein this walk or motion principally consists. And first, we find no word so expressive, no word more commonly used in holy Writ then this, To walk with God, Gen. 16. To walk before God, Gen. 24.40. to walk by Faith, 2 Cor. 5.7. To walk in good Works, Ephes. 2. and in divers other places; For indeed, in this one word, in this one syllable, in contained the whole matter, the end and sum of all; All that can be brought in, to make up the perfect man in Christ Jesus.  
For first; This brings forth a Christian, like a Pilgrim, a Traveller, forgetting what is behind, and weary of the place he stands in, counting those few approaches he hath made as nothing, ever panting and striving, gaining ground, and pressing forward to a higher degree, to a better place; As there is motus ad perfectionem, a motion to persection; so there is motus in perfectione, a motion, and progress even in perfection itself; the good Christian being ever perfect, and never perfect till he come to his journey's end.  
Secondly, It takes within its compass all those essential requisites to action. 1. It supposeth faculty to discover the way. 2ly, A power to act, and move in it. 3ly, Will, which is nothing else, but principium actionis, as Tert. calls, the beginning of all motion, the Imperial power, which as Queen commands, and gives act to the understanding, senses, Affections, and those faculties which are subject to it; And besides this, to walk, implies those outward and adventitious helps; Knowledge in the understanding, and love in the Will, which are as this Pilgrim's staff, to guide and uphold him in his way; his knowledge is as the day to him, to walk as in the Day, and his Love makes his journey shorter, though it be through the wilderness of this world, to a City not made with hands, nor seen. For faculty without knowledge, 
Hebr. 11.  is like Polyphemus, a body with power to move, but without eyesight to direct, and therefore cannot choose but offend and move amiss; and faculty and knowledge without love, and desire, are but like a Body, which wanting nourishment, hath no sense of hunger to make it call for it, and therefore cannot but bring leanness into the soul: For be our natural faculty and ability what it will, yet if we know not our way, we shall no more walk in it, than the Traveller sound of body and limb can go the way aright, of which he is utterly ignorant; Again, be our Abilities perfect, and let our knowledge be absolute, yet if we want a mind, and have no love, if we suffer ourselves to be over-swayed by a more potent affection to something else, we shall never do, what we know well enough, and are otherwise enabled to. Now to walk in Christ takes in all these: Faculty, Power, Will, Knowledge, Love; Then you see a Christian in his walk, rejoicing as a mighty man to run his race, when the Understanding is the Counsellor, and points out; This is the way, walk in it; and the will hath an eye to the hand; and direction of the understanding, bows itself, and as a Queen draws with in those inferior faculties, the senses and Affections, when it opens my eye to the wonders of God's Law, and shuts it up by covenant to the vanity of the world; when it bounds my touch and taste, with Touch not, Taste not any forbidden thing; when it makes the senses as windows to let in life, not death, Jer. 9.21. and as gates shut fast to the world, and the Devil, and lifting up their Heads to let the King of Glory in, when it composeth, and tuneth our Affections to such a Peace, and Harmony, setting our love to piety, our anger to sin, our fear to God's wrath, our hope to things not seen, our sorrow to what is done amiss, and so frameth in us, nunc modulos Temperantiae, nunc carmen pietatis, as Saint Ambrose speaks, now the even measures of Temperance, now a Psalm of piety, now the Threnody of a broken heart, even those Songs of Zion, which the Angels in heaven, and God himself delight in; and all these are vitually included in this one word, to walk in Christ, and if any of these be wanting, what proffers soever we make; what fancies soever we entertain, what empty conceptions soever we foster, yet flesh and blood cannot raise itself on these wings of wind, nor can we be more said to walk, than they who have been dead long ago.  
For so fare is the bare knowledge of the way from advancing us in our walk, that it is a thing supposed, and no where under the command, as it is merely speculative, and ends in itself; no more than to see, or feel, or hear, and so essential is this motion of walking to a Christian, that in the language of the Spirit we are never truly said to know, till we walk, and that made imperfect knowledge, which receives those things, which concern our peace, no otherwise then the eye doth colours, or the ear sounds; never being once named or mentioned in the Scripture, but with disgrace; If any man say, I know him, and keep not his Commandments, he is a liar. 1 Joh. 2.4. so that to define our walking by Knowledge and speculation, is a kind of Heresy, which rather deserves an Anathema, and should be driven out of the Church with more zeal and earnestness, than many, though gross, yet silly, impertinent errors, which p●sse abroad about the world, but under that name.  
For 1. this speculative knowledge is but a naked assent, and to more, and hath nothing of the will: and the understanding is not an arbitrary faculty, but necessarily apprehends objects in that shape and form they represent themselves; nor is it deceived, even when it is deceived (I mean in things which concern our walk) for the bill and accusation against us, is not, that we do not, but that we will not understand; nolumus intelligere ne cogamur & facere, saith Aug. we will not know our way, for no other reason, but because we are most unwilling to take the pains, and walk in it. And therefore in every Christian peripatetique, there must be something of the Seraphin, and something of the Cherubin, there must be heat, as well as light, love as well as knowledge: for love is active, and will place on, 
Hugo de Sancto vict.  where Knowledge doth but stand at gaze, Amor intrat, ubi cognitio foris stat, love is active, and will make a battery, and forcible entrance, and take the Kingdom of heaven by violence, whilst Speculation stands without, and looks upon it, as in a Map. What talk we of knowledge and speculation? It is but a look, a cast of the minds eye, and no more, and doth but place us, as God did Moses once upon mount Nebo, to see that spiritual Canaan, which we shall never enjoy; and than what comfort is it, to know what Justification is, and to want that hand of a quick and active faith, which alone can lay hold on Christ? to talk of Election, and never make it sure? to dispute of Paradise, and have no title to it? to speak of nothing more, than Heaven, and be an heir of Damnation? And then, what a fruitless mock-knowledge is that, which sets God a walking, whilst we sleep and dream? makes the Master of the Vineyard work, and sweat, and stands idle itself all the day long? which hath a full view of what God hath done before all Time, and no power at all to move us, to do any thing in this our day? when we are well seen in the Decrees of God, and little move in our own Duties? when we can follow God in all his ways, and tell how he worketh in us, and are afraid of that fear and trembling, with which we should work out our Salvation? can speak largely of the Power of God's Grace, and resist it? of perseverance, and fall more than seven times a day? This knowledge, I say, is but a bare assent, and so far from being enjoined us, that, as the case now stands, ignorance were the safer choice; and rather than thus to know him, we may say with the Apostle, Let him that is ignorant, 
1 Cer. 14.38.  be ignorant still.  
For in the second place: as we use it, it works in us at the most but a weak purpose ●f mind, a faint velleity, a forced involuntary approbation, which we would shake off, if we could, as we do a friend which speaks what we would not hear, and calls that poison, which is as Honey to our taste: For who can see such sights, and not in some degree be taken with them? Who can look upon the Temple, and not ask, what Buildings are these? who can see the way to life, and not approve it? but you know, I may purpose to rise; and yet fold my hands to sleep? I may commend the way, and not walk in it: Nay, how often do we pray, Give us ever of this Bread of life, and yet labour most for this bread that perisheth; which we at once revile and embrace, and speak evil of it, because we love it, when heaven is but as a Picture, which we look upon, and wonder, and refuse, and hath no better place of reception, than that common Inn of all wild, and lose imaginations, the fancy? Christ is the way: it is in every man's Creed; and if this would make us walkers, what a multitude of Sectaries? what a Herd of Epicures? what an assembly of Atheists? what a congregation of fools? I had almost said, what a Legion of Devils might go under that name? For even the Devils themselves have acknowledged Christ, and this way is not evil spoken of, nay, it is magnifyed of them who had rather wallow in the mire, then walk in it: How is Christ made not only panis quotidianus, our daily Bread, but sermo quotidianus, the talk of every day and hour? In our misery we implore his help; In his Name we lie down, and in his Name we rise up, In his Name we Prophecy: if afflictions beat upon us, he is called upon to calm the storm? If our conscience chide us, we have learned an unhappy art and skill to force him in to make our Peace? We love to talk of him, we many times leave our necessary callings, and trades most unnecessarily, but to hear of him: but all these may be rather proffers, than motions, rather pleasing and flattering thoughts, then painful ambulations, as St. Augustine speaks of himself, in his Confessions, 
Confess. l. 8. c. 5.  cogitationes similes conatibus expergisci volentium, thoughts like to the endeavours of men half asleep, who would be awaked, and cannot, who move and stir, and lightly lift up the head, and then fall down fast asleep: I have been too liberal, and given them more strength, than they have, I mean, than these Gnostics give them, whom they neither more, nor stir, but leave them in their prospect, fast asleep.  
Or at the best, in the third place, this inclination, this approbation is but a Dream, visus adesse mihi, etc. Christ may seem to walk with us, when he is not in all our ways; and as in Dra,s we seem to perform many things, we do all things, and we do nothing.  
Nunc fora, nunc lights, laeti modo pompa Theatri, etc. 
Ausonii Ephemeris.   
We plead we wrestle, we fight, we Triumph, we sail, we fly, we see; not what is, but hath, or should be done, and all is but a dream: so when we have made a fanciful peregrination through all the pleasant fields, and rivers of milk, through all the riches and glory of the Gospel, and delights which it affords; when we have seen our Saviour in his Cratch, lead him to mount Calvary, beheld him on his Cross, brought him back with Triumph from his grave, and placed him at the right hand of God; we may think indeed, we have walked all this while with Christ: but when our conscience shall recover her light, which was darkened with the pleasures and follies of this present life, when she shall dart this light upon us, and plainly tell us, that we have not fasted with him, that we have not watched one hour with him, that we have not gone about with him doing good, that we have loved those enemies, which he came to destroy, That we have been so fare from crucifying our flesh, that we have crucified him again to fulfil the lusts thereof; That the world, and not Christ hath been the Form, which moved us in the whole course of our life; behold than it will appear, that all was but a dream. Foolish men that we are, who hath bewitched us? we dispute, we writ books, we coin distinctions, we study for the truth, we are angry for the truth, we lose our Peace for the Truth, we fight for the truth, we die for the truth, and when all is done, upon due examination, nothing is done, but we have spun a Spider's web, which the least breath of God's displeasure will blow a way: we have known the way, and approved it, have subscribed, that, This is the way, but have made no more progress towards our journey's end, than our picture; we have but dreamt of life, and are still in the valley of the shadow of Death.  
Conclus. And now, what says the Scripture? Awake thou that sleepest, that dreamest, and stand up from the dead. Let us not please ourselves with Visions, and Dreams, with the suborned flattery of our own imaginations; Let us not think, that if we seek the way, and like it, and speak well of it, we are in heaven already, or have that hope, that well-grounded never failing Hope, which may entitle us to it; why should such a thought arise in our heart? a thought, that makes us worse than fools, or madmen, and will keep us so, courting of sin, labouring in iniquity, and wit greediness working out our own destruction; a thought that shuts out God, and makes an open entrance for a legion of Devils, and then welcomes, and attends them; For all the sins which the Flesh is subject to, or the Devil can suggest, may well stay, and find a place of rest, with such a thought. Why should we please, and lose ourselves in such a Though? See, here is water, what doth let me to be baptised? said the Eunuch to Philip, Act. 8. Here is light; what hindereth, that we do not walk in it? Behold heaven opens itself, and displays all its beauty, and glory? why do we run from it? Knowledge directs, but we will not follow; Knowledge persuades; but we will not hearken; Knowledge commands; but we rebel: we are Illuminated, we profess we know Christ, but we will not be sanctified; For by our Works we deny him. Tit. 1.16. Our Knowledge follows, and pursues us, we cannot shake it off; it stays with us, whether we will or no; it goads, it provokes, it chides, it importunes, it triumphs within us, but yet not over us, because those vanities, which we are too familiar with, will not suffer us to yield; we cannot be ignorant of what we know, but we are too often unwilling to do that of which we cannot be ignorant; our self-love undoes us, and our own will drives us on the rocks, whilst the light within us points out to the Haven, where we should be, and the knowledge within us, which did exhort, instrust and correct, is made a witness against us, and a Judge to condemn us to more stripes than they shall feel, who had not so much as a glance of light, but did sit in darkness, and in the shadow of Death.  
Let us them not fly, but walk, not hover aloft in the contemplation of what is to be done, but stoop down, and do it, subdue the will to our Knowledge, the sense to reason; let us learn to walk; & by walking, be more learned, then before, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉: for Practice saith Naz. is to Knowledge, 
Naz. Or. tertia.  what Knowledge is to it, a Foundation, as we build our Practice upon Knowledge, (for we must know before we can walk) so we raise our knowledge higher, and higher upon practice, as Heat helpeth motion, and is increased by it, and the torch burns brighter, being fanned by that air which it inlightens. 
Psal. 25.14.  The secret of the Lord is revealed to them that fear him, and his Covevant to give them more understanding, saith David. Let us then join, as St. Peter exhorts; with Knowledge, Temperance, 
2 Pet. 1.6.  and with Temperance Patience, and with Patience Godliness, and these will make, that we shall neither be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, idle, and not walk, for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, walk, but to nopurpose, unfruitful in the knowledge of Jesus Christ. For to join these two, Knowledge and Practice, and to abound more and more, is to walk in Christ. Thus much of the first.  

2 Part.  And thus we see a Christian man's life is not as empty, airy speculation, a sitting still, or standing, but a walk. Let us now in the second place see, wherein this motion, or walk principally consists: and you may think perhaps, That I shall now point out to the Denial of ourselves, show you Christ's Cross to take up, and bid you follow him; to fight against the World, and all that is in the world; the lusts of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, 
Joh. 1.2.16.  and the pride of life; that it is, To lay hold of Christ, to love Christ, to be Adopted, to be Regenerate, to be called, and converted (for with these Generalities the Religion of too many is carried along, and not with the thing itself, but the Name; and with these names and Notions they play and please themselves, 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  as the silly Fly doth with the flame of the Taper, till they lose their wings and feet, and are but a body, a Lump that can neither walk, nor move; They deny themselves with an Oath, and yet are themselves still as greedy as rapacious, as before; They take up the Cross, but 'tis to lay it on other men's shoulders, they follow Christ, but as Peter did, afar off, or rather as the Jews, to crucify him, They fight against the world, that is, against one another, who shall possess it (for even this we do not do, not fill our coffers, but in the name of Christ, and Religion.) They lay hold on Christ, but 'tis to carry him along with them, to promote, and further their designs. They love him, 'tis plain they do, and yet no give him a cup of cold water,, when he begs at their door? They love him, as they do one another, till 'tis put to the Trial: They are Adopted, but not of his family; Regenerated, but are liker to the Father of lies, then him, they pretend to: They are called, and converted; For they know the very hour, and moment of time when they heard the voice, and said Amen to it. Lord what a noise have these Phrases, these words made in the World; and yet 'tis the world still; even a world of wickedness? 
Sen. Centrov.  As the Orator said of Figures, possumus sine his vivere, we may live and be saved with less noise; for all these signify but one, and the same thing; To deny ourselves, to take up the Cross, to follow Christ, to fight against the world, to lay hold on Christ, to love him, to be Adopted, Regenerated, and Converted, all is no more than this, to believe in Christ, and to be sincere, upright, just, and honest men. Yet these words, and words of Holy writ, the language of the Spirit of God, and they all full and significant, nor can I give you a fairer Interpretation of my Text, He that denies himself, walks in Christ: he that loves Christ, walks in him, he that is Adopted, Regenerate, Converted, walks in Christ; but this is too general, and I see but ill use made of these excellent expressions, which should make us better, and through our own wilful folly, make us worse (for we may shape ourselves how we list, in our Fancy, and be quite the contrary) we will therefore interpret this walk in Christ by that of Saint Paul, 
1 Cor. 7.13.  Let every man abide in the same calling wherein he was called, where the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he was called, 
Grot. in loc.  points out, and designs (as a Learned man hath observed) the time of his Heavenly Calling; and so both callings are made compatible, and friendly linked together; my condition of life in this world, and my calling to a better, my being a part of the Commonwealth, and my being a member of Christ. For Christ came not to break Relations, or to disturb Commonwealths; not to shut up the Tradesman's shop, or block up the Sea to the Merchant, nor to take the Husbandman from the Plough; and I may do all these, and yet deny myself, and take up the Cross, and fight against the world; or rather I cannot do all these, unless I do the other, not abide in one calling, as I should, unlessed walk worthy of the other, not be a good Merchant, unless I be a god Christian (that we doubt not) nay, but not walk in Christ, unless we walk in our Calling. The life, saith Saint Paul, which I now live in the Flesh, 
Gal. 2.20.  I live by the Faith of the Son of God; That is, Those things, which I do pertaining to the flesh, and which this natural, mortal life requires, as to eat, drink, converse with others, and to seek my meat by the sweat of my brows (which may seem to have no relation to a Spiritual life) I do them in the Faith of the Son of God. For in all these things, I have always an eye to the rule of Faith, I make that my star, my Compass to steer by, and my care is, to make every action of my life in my temporary, conformable and consonant to my heavenly calling. And the reason is plain; for even our natural and civil Actions, as far as they are capable of honesty or dishonesty, pertain or have reference to faith; for although Christ and his Religion do not necessitate, or compel men to engage in this, or that particular Action, or calling, yet notwithstanding it is a rule sufficient to govern and direct us in any: to keep us in a fair correspondency, and obedience to reason and the will of God; the Faith and Religion of Christ being practical, and having that force, and efficacy, which may be shown and manifested in all the civil Actions of our life. 
Wisd. 16.21.  As the Jewish Rabbis report of the Manna, which the Children of Israel did eat in the Wilderness; that it had this wonderful property, that it would fit itself to every man's taste, and look what Viand, what meat it was, that any was delighted with, it would in taste be like unto it; so doth Christianity, like this Manna, doctâ quadam mobilitate, by a certain secret force, apply itself to every Taste, to every Calling. Read the Sermon on the Mount, and those Epistles which the holy Apostles sent to several Churches, and what is there delivered (the Foundation first laid) then an Art of Governing ourselves, and conversing with men? Art thou called to be a Servant, 
1 Cor. 7.21. Or there it is, art thou called, being a servant. Eph. 6 7.  serve as in the sight of Christ? Art thou called to be a master; Remember thou hast a Master in Heaven? Art thou a Husbandman, it will hold the Plough with thee? Art thou a Tradesman? it will buy and sell with thee? Art thou a Scholar? it will study with thee: if thou go into the Vineyard, it will bear the heat of the day with thee, till the Evening, and then pay thee thy wages: if thou sell, it will oversee thy weights and measures: If we bargain, it will remember us, that we defraud not one another, for this Counsel was given to the Thessalonians, who were most of them men of Trade, 
1 Thess. 4.6.  and Merchants: When we speak, he bids us, cast away lying. And thus doth Christian Religion spread its beams through every corner of the Earth; shining upon us at every turn, and every motion, 
5. Ephes 25.  waiting upon us in every condition of life, keeping every man within the bounds of his Calling, and Honesty; and whilst we follow this light, walk within these bounds, stretch not, as Saint Paul speaks, 
2 Cor. 10.14. Beyond measure.  beyond our line, we may be truly said to walk in Christ.  

Use.  And therefore, to make some use of this, Let us not deceive ourselves, and think we never walk in Christ, but when we walk to Church to hear some News of him; that when we have shut him out of our Houses, and shops, we shall be sure to meet with him again at Church, that we never serve him, but in his own House, we have some reason to fear, we never serve him worse; never Walk less, than when we walk so fare; And certainly, if the End be better, and more Noble than the means to the End, than our Even and upright motion in our several conditions, must needs have the pre-eminence: For here; in the Church we are called; but there we work in the Vineyard: Here we take out our lesson, there we con it; here we receive rules to guide us, there we practise them: Here Christ is form in us, there he is manifested, as it were, in our flesh, in our outward Actions: In a word, here we are taught to go, there we walk in Christ. Oh then, let us not so perversely Honour Christ, as to dishonour him, or think, that he that passed through the contumelies of our nature, as Tert speaks, and was made like unto his brethren, should disdain to be with us, and walk with us in our Calling, be it never so mean; That Christ is disgraced, when we call him into our counting-Houses, or our Shops; that we do not walk in Christ, when we sweat in our calling. You know what Saint John Baptist said to the Soldier, and the Publican, and certainly, 
Luk. 3.14.  if the Publican in his customhouse, if the Soldier with his sword in his hand, may walk in Christ, I know no calling so mean, no trade so low, as to be excluded. It was a witless, and groundless Etymon, which he gave, who said, they were called mechanic Arts, quia intellectus in iis quodammodo moechatur, because the understanding in these manual trades, seems to adulterate and pollute itself, for nothing can pollute a foul but sin, and dishonesty, and the soul is then most pure, when passing as it were through these earthy and carnal affairs, she order them aright, but receives nothing that is earthy or carnal from them, retaining still, in the midst of these employments, her native and proper spirituality. In the third of Gen. Adam himself is set to till the ground; at the 6. Noah is a Shipwright, at the 24. you shall see Rebeccah with Bracelets indeed on her arms, but with a Pitcher on her shoulder. In the 6 of the Judges, Gideon receives his Commission to be Captain of Israel, whilst the flail was in his hand: And where did our Saviour call the Disciples, but as they were mending their Nets? And to take off this imputation, himself descended to a Trade, was obedient to his Parents; justin Martyr says, 
Coll cum Tryph. Judae●.  he made 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ploughs, and yokes. Be our calling what it will, we then walk truly in Christ, when we walk honestry in it: Nor only our attention, our sighs, our groans, our often mentioning his Name, but our silence, our honesty, our Industry, may make us Christian peripatetics. Let us then, in the name of Christ, and Religion, abide in our particular calling (be it whatsoever Providence hath placed us in, high or low, rich or poor) let us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, abide in it against all Temptations whatsoever, bear them, bear up against them by his power; keep a good Conscience against the flatteries of the world; and the loving and bitter menaces of Poverty; in his Name rise up early, and lie down late, in his Name cast out those evil Spirits, those false suggestions which might hinder us in our walk, and so press forward in a constant and uninterrupted Motion, never shaken nor changed with the manifold changes, and chances of this sading World, and then we shall be not only Christ's servants, but his Companions and friends, he will call us so; and then when Christ thus goes along with us in all our ways, when we walk on Earth, but by this light from Heaven, we may assure ourselves by thus walking, we walk in Christ.  
We pass now from the Duty, To walk in Christ, to the manner, How we must walk in him, or the Rule by which we must regulate our motion; sicut accepistis, we must so walk as we have received Him.  

Second General part.  As you have received him, so walk in him; that is, since you have received him, walk in him, and in this sense we may take it; " Rest not in the outward Profession, think not, that you are only vessels to receive him, but channels, or conduits through which he must be conveyed, even through every vein, through every faculty of your soul, and every member of your bodies, and so be made visible in the actions of your life.  
To receive him, and not to walk in him, will but swell and enlarge the burden of our Accounts; as to receive any good from him, and not to use it to that end for which it was given, is the worst evil that can befall us. Many receive him, because he comes with so much beauty, that they cannot refuse him, because they are convinced, That he is fairer than the children of men; and most worthy to be received; For not only out of the mouths of babes and Sucklings, but out of the mouths of wicked men hath God ordained strength, and wisdom is justified, not only of her friends, but of her Enemies. Many receive him, as it were in a throng, applaud Christianity, dare not refuse it, lest the multitude of those they live with, should confute and silence them; Si nomen Christi in tanta Gloriâ non esset, tot professores Christisancti Ecclesia non haberet, 
Greg. Hom. 3 2. in Evang.  saith Greg. If the name of Christ were not so high, and glorious in the world, the Church would fall short in her number of Professors, whereof many make but a proffer at christianity, for companies sake.  
This the Apostle may seem either to have seen, or been afraid of, either to have had it in his eye, or in his jealousy, and therefore strives to remove, or to prevent it, for it is fare the lesser evil, not to know his Name, than thus to receive him, an unhappy ignorance finding some mercy even in judgement, of which a fruitless and ungrateful knowledge is not capable.  
And in this sense we may take it; but if we look forward, and consider the many cautions the Apostle puts up against Philosophy, Traditions of men, and the Law of Ceremonies, I see not, but that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, 
Nihil peregrinum audite: Oecum. in loc.  here may be an Adverb of similitude and likeness, and then the sense will run thus; walk in him, in that manner you have received him, as he was presented and delivered to you by me, or as S. jude interprets it, 
verse 3.  as he was delivered 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 once for all, unto the Saints: 
Sicut edocti estis. v. 7.  otherwise we receive him not, or receive something else for Christ, or something more, or something less than Christ. And as the danger is great, if we receive him not, so is it no less if we receive him not in his own shape, in his full Beauty & Perfection, in which he hath been pleased to present himself unto us in his Gospel. The grand error, and mistake of the world is in the manner of receiving him: For as in respect of his Person, we find that the Christians in former Ages could not agree in the manner of receiving Christ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, 
Naz. Or. 26.  but some would receive him after this manner, some after another; some a created Christ, others a half Christ, some through a conduit-pipe, others less visible, than a Type, in an aerial and fantastical body, a Christ and not a Christ, a Christ divided, and a Christ contracted, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, saith Naz. and many Christ's, indeed as good none at all: So in the practical part, in respect of his Doctrine, we often err, and dangerously in the receiving him: we say, Anathema to the Arrians, Manichees, and Anabaptists, and let them pass with the censure of the Church upon them; but how we do receive him? If we will hearken to ourselves, our consciences will tell us; with his curly locks, and spicy cheeks, with his Flagons and his Apples, (as he is said to be described in the Canticles) to save sinners, but not to command them, with Gospel, and Mercy as much as he will, but not with any law; a Physician that should heal us, without a Prescript, a King without a Sceptre; a Son, that will be kissed (we like that well) but not be angry. Some receive him without the Law, not only taking away the rigour of it, but abolishing it quite, removing it out of our sight, not only as a Covenant, but as a Rule of life to guide and govern us, and then the Christian is a Libertine: some receive him with the Law of works, and make them not only a condition required of a justified Person, but a part and helping cause of justifying a sinner, and taking off the guilt, which is the work of Mercy alone, and then the Christian is in part a Jew; some receive him in the very shape the Jews expected him, with Drum and colours, and then the Christian is a man of blood. Some receive him in the shape of Elias, driving out all that oppose him from the Land of the Living; and then the Christian is a consuming fire. Some receive him, not as a sacrifice for sin, but as an Abettor, and Countenancer of those foul Enormities which nailed him to his Cross; and then the Christian is a man of Belial. The ambitious receive him, and with him Honour, and the highest place: The wanton gallant receives him, and with him all the vanities of the world; a poor, naked Christ, with silk and purple, and delicious fare. The Covetous receive him, and with him Mammon, and so walk in a shadow, till he fall into the grave, which in this is like him; That it will not be satisfied, or say, It is enough: In a word, the Papist impropriates him, the Schismatique divides him, the Heretic trade's with him. The Ambitious scorn him: The Covetous sells him, the Oppressor whips him, The mocker spits in his face; The Libertine crucifies him again, most receive him, but most of all that most, are enemies to the Cross of Christ.  
And therefore in these latitudes and deviations, inter tot humanos errores, when there are so many errors and mistakes, it will be necessary, to have an eye to the sicut, to the rule, that we neither exceed, nor come short, Scriptura non fallit si se Homo non salad, 
Aug. de urbis exerdie.  saith Aust. the word received, the rule cannot deceive a man, if a man deceive not himself first, and then suborn, and force in the rule, to make good the cheat. It is a well of living water; if we do not stop it, as the Philistines did Isaac's wells, and then fill it with Dust, 
Gen. 26.15.  with earthy glosses, consult with flesh and blood, and make that an Interpreter one of a Thousand. It is a glass, and will show thee the colour, the full proportion of every step, and motion, if thou look steadfastly upon it, and not go away, and forget, and then look upon others in their walk, or make they own fancy a glass, like that which Pliny said, did hang in the Temple of Smyrna, in which thou mayst see every thing but thyself. It is the Word of God, 
Psal 60.56. Figurant verba mea, ut qui ceram premendo figurat digitis, is illam premendo, quasi dolore afficit.  who cannot lie, his Oracle, His voice from heaven to thee walking here on the Earth, and it will direct thy steps, and make thy paths straight, if thou do not dolorem verbo afferre, as David complains of his enemies, bring grief unto it, wrist and wreath, and shape, and figure it by violence, fit it to thy Action, and make light itself bear witness to a work of darkness, make that place of Scripture plead for thee, which in plain terms hath given sentence against thee, and co●…mned thee as a Malefactor; Ad omnia occurrit veritas, the Rule will help us at all losses in our way, if we do not choose and delight to wander, and call error itself Truth, because it gives us of that forbidden fruit, which is pleasant to our eye and taste, or which our humour, or fancy, or Lust have marked out, as our chiefest happiness; for these are the best, and most Authentic Interpreters of this world. These are the Doctors in our Israel.  
How readest thou? that's the rule; not how thinkest thou? how wishest thou? how wouldst thou have it? and we must walk sicut accepimus, as we have received; This is set up against all other sicuts, all other Rules whatsoever, and bids us beware of men, beware of ourselves, and try every spirit; for it is not sicut vidimus, as we see others walk, nor sicut visum est, as it may seem good in our own eyes (for no man more ready to put a cheat upon us, than ourselves) nor sicut visum est spiritui, as it may seem good to every spirit (for we are too prone, to take every lying spirit, even our own (which is but our Humour or Lust) for our Holy Ghost) what Saint john said of Antichrist, may also be said of the spirit, we have heard that the spirit shall come, and behold now there are many spirits, the world is full of them, so that there are as many Rules almost as men, by which they walk several ways, but to the same end, pressing forward to the delights, and glory of this world, nothing doubting of their right and title to the next; thus joining together God and the World (as julian the Apostate did his own statues, 
Naz. Orat. 3. Invect prior.  and his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉) that they may be worshipped both together. None of these will fit us, but sicut accepimus, as we have received from Christ, and his Apostles, which is the only, sufficient Rule to guide us in our walk.  
And first, not sicut vidimus, as we have seen others walk; no: though their praise be in the Gospel, and they are numbered amongst the Saints of God; For as St. Bern. calls the examples of the Saints condimentum vitae, the sauce of our life, to season and make pleasant, what else may prove bitter to us (as jobs Dunghill may be a good sight for me to look upon in my low estate, and his patience may uphold me; David's Groans and complaints, may tune my sorrow; Saint Paul's labours, and stripes and Imprisonment, may give me an Issue 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, 
1 Cor. 10.13.  a way, a Power to escape the like Temptation, by conquering it. I may wash off all my Grief with their Tears, wipe out all disgrace with their contumelies; and bury the fear of Death in their graves) so they may prove, if we be not wary, venenum vitae, as poison to our life and walk: For, I know not how, we are readier to stumble with the Saints, then to walk with them, Readier to lie down with David in his bed of lust, then in his Couch of tears; Readier to deny Crist with Peter upon a pretence of frailty, then to weep bitterly out of a deep sense of our sin: In the errors and deviations of my life, I am Noah, and Abraham, and David, and Peter,: I am all the Patriarches, and all the Apostles, but in that which made them Saints, I have little skill, and less mind to follow them: It will concern us then, to have one eye upon the Saint, and another upon the rule, that the Actions of good men may be as a prosperous Gale to drive us forward in our course, and the rule, the Compass to steer by; for it will neither help nor comfort me, to say, I shipwrackt with a Saint. My Brethren, saith Saint james, have not the saith of Christ in respect of Persons, 
jam. 2.1.  for it is too common a thing to take our eye from the rule, and settle it upon the Person, whom we gaze upon till we have lost our sight, and can see nothing of man, or infirmity in him: His virtue and our esteem, shines and casts a colour, and brightness upon the Evil, which he doth, upon whatsoever he says, though it be false; or does though it be irregular; that it is either less visible, or if it be seen, commends itself, by the person that did it, and so steals, and wins upon us unawares, and hath power with us, as a Law. Can St. Augustine err? There have been too many in the Church, who thought he could not, and to free him from error, have made his errors greater than they were by large additions of their own, and fathered upon him those misshapen Births, which (were he now alive) he would startle at, and run from, or stand up, and use all his strength to destroy: Can Calvin or Luther do, or speak any thing, that was not right; they that follow them, and are proud of their Names, willing to be distinguished from all others by them, would be very Angry, and hate you perfectly, if you should say, they could; and we cannot but be sensible what strange effects, this admiration of their Persons hath wrought upon the Earth, what a fire it hath kindled, hotter than that of the Tyrant's Furnace; 
Dan. 3.  for the flames have raged even to our very doors. Thus the Examples of good men, like two-edged swords, cut both ways, both for good, and for bad; and sin and error may be conveyed to us not only in the Cup of the Whore, but in the Vessels of the Sanctuary; They are as the Plague, and infect wheresoever they are, but spread more contagion from a Saint, then from a man of Belial; in the one they are scarce seen, in the other they are seen with horror, in the one, we hate not the sin: so much as the person, and in the other we are favourable to the sin for the persons sake, and at last grow familiar with it, as with our friend. Nihil perniciosius Gestis sanctorum, 
Luther de Abrog. priv. Miss.  said Luther himself, There is nothing more dangerous, than the Actions of the Saints, not strengthened by the Testimony of Scripture, and it is fare safer to count that a sin in them, which hath not its warrant from Scripture, then to fix it up for an ensample; for it is not good to follow a Saint into the Ditch. Let us take them, not whom men (for men may Canonize themselves, and others as they please) but whom God himself, as it were with his own hand hath registered for Saints. Samson was a good man, and hath his name in the catalogue of believers; 
Numb. 25.  Phinehas a zealous man, who stayed the Plague, by executing of judgement, but I can neither make Samson an argument to kill myself, nor Phinehas, to shed the blood of an Adulerer. 
Lib. 2. de Baptismo. q 4 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Heb. 10.24.  Saint Basil observes, that amongst those many seeming contradictions in Scripture, one is of a fact, or work done, to the Precept. The command is, Thou shalt not kill: Samson killed himself, Phinehas with his spear nails the adulterous couple to the earth, but every man hath not Sampson's spirit, nor Phinehas commission: The Father's rule is the rule of wisdom itself: when we read in Scripture a fact commended, which falls cross with the Precept, we must leave the Fact, and cleave to the Precept; for examples are not rules of life, but provocations to good works, sicut vidimus, as we have seen, is not a right sicut: sicut Elias, like as Elias, but not to consume men with fire; like unto Peter, but not to cut off a man's ear; and like unto Saint Paul; but himself corrects it with another sicut, 
1 Cor. 11.1.  sicut ego Christi, as I am unto Christ.  
Secondly, But in the next place; if not sicut vidimus, as we have seen others, than not sicut visumfuerit, as it shall seem good in our own eyes; for fancy is a wanton, unruly, froward faculty, and in us, as in Beasts, for the most part, supplies the place of reason, vulgus ex veritate pauca, 
Pro Rose. Comaedo.  ex opinone multa aestimat, saith Tull. the Common people (which is the greatest part of mankind) are lead rather by Opinion, then by the truth (for vulgus is of a larger signification than we usually take it in) because they are more subject and enslaved to those two turbulent Tribunes of the soul, The Irascible, and Concupiscible Appetite, and so more opinionative than then those, who are not so much under their command: It is truly said, Affectiones sacilè faciunt opiniones, our affections will easily raise up opinions; for who will not soon fancy that to be true, which he would have so? which may either fill his hopes, or satisfy his lusts, or justify his anger, or answer his love, or look friendly on that which our wild Passions drive us to: Opinion is as a wheel, on which the greatest part of the world are turned, and wheeled about, till they fall off several ways into several evils, and do scarce touch at Truth in the way. Opinion builds our Church: chooseth our Preacher, formeth our Discipline, frameth our gesture, measureth our Prayers, Methodizeth our Sermons: Opinion doth exhort, instruct, correct, Teaches, and commands; If it say, Go, we go, and if it say, Do this, we do it; we call it our conscience; and it is our God; and hath more worshippers, than Truth. For though Opinion have a weaker Groundwork, than Truth, yet she builds higher; but it is but Hay and stubble, fit for the fire. Good God: what a Babel may be erected upon a Thought? I verily thought, saith Saint Paul, and what a whirlwind was that thought? 
Act. 26.9.  which drove him to Damascus with Letters, and to kick against the pricks. Shall I tell you, it was but Fancy that in David's time beat down the carved works with Axes and Hammers: It was but a Thought that destroyed the Temple itself, that killed the Prophets, and persecuted the Apostles, and crucified the Lord of life Himself. And therefore it will concern us to watch our Fancy, and to deal with it as Mothers do with their children: who when they desire that which may hurt them, deny them that, but to still and quiet them, give them some other thing they may delight in, take away a Knife, and give them an Apple; so when our Fancy sports and pleaseth itself with vain and airy speculations, let us suspect and quarrel them, and by degrees present unto it the very face of Truth, as the Stoic speaks 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, 
Epict.  fist and winnow our imaginations, bring them to the light, and as the devout Schoolman speaks, resolve all our effectual notious by the Accepistis, 
Gers.  by the Rule, and so demolish all those Idols, which our Passions by the help of Fancy have set up; for why should such a deceit pass unquestioned? why should such an Imposture scape without a mark?  
Thirdly, But now, if we may not walk sicut visum est, as it seemeth good unto us, yet we may sicut visum est Spiritui sancto, as it seemeth good to the Holy Ghost; Yes, for that is to walk according to the rule, for he speaketh in the word, and to walk after the Spirit, and to walk by this Rule, are one and the same thing: but yet the World hath learned a cursed Art, to set them at distance, and when the Word turns from us, and will not be drawn up to our Fancy, to carry on our pleasing, but vain imaginations, we then appeal to the Spirit; we bring him in, either to deny his own word, or which in effect is the same, to interpret it against his own meaning, and so (with Reverence be it spoken) make him no better, than a Knight of the post, to witness to a lie; This we would do, but cannot, for make what noise we will, and boast of his Name, we are still at visum est nobis, it is but Fancy still, 'tis our own spirit, not the Holy Ghost. For as there be many false Christ's, so there are many false spirits, and we are commanded not to believe; 
1 Joh. 4.1.  but to try them, and what can we try them by, but by the Rule? and as they will say, lo here is Christ, or there is Christ, so they will say, Lo here is the spirit, and there is the spirit; The Pope lays claim to it, and the Enthusiast lays claim to it, and whoso will may lay claim to it on the same grounds, when neither hath any better Argument to prove it by, than their bare words, no Evidence, but what is forged, in that shop of vanities, their Fancy, idem Actio, Titioque. both are alike in this; And if the Pope could persuade me, that ●e never opened his mouth, but the spirit spoke by him, I would then pronounce him Infallible, and place him in the chair; and if the Enthusiast could build me up in the same faith, and belief of him, I would be bold to proclaim the same of him, and set him by his side, and seek the Law at his mouth: would you know the two Grand Impostors of the World, which have been in every age, and made that desolation, which we see on the Earth? They are these two; A pretended zeal, and a pretence of the spirit. If I be a Zealot, what dare I not do? and when I presume I have the Spirit, what dare I not say? what Action so foul, which these may not authorise? what wickedness imaginable, which these may not countenance? what evil may not these seal for good, and what good may they not call evil? oh take heed of a false light, and too much fire; these two have walked these many Ages about the Earth, not with the blessed Spirit, which is a light to illuminate, and as Fire to purge us, but with their father the Devil, transformed into Angels of light, and burning Seraphins; but have led men upon those Precipices, into those works of Darkness, which no night is dark enough to cover.  

Conclus. 1.  I might here much enlarge myself, for it is a subject fit for a Sermon, than a part of one, and for a Volume, than a Sermon, but I must conclude;  
And for conclusion, let us, whilst the light shineth in the world, walk on, guided by the rule, which which will bring us at last to the holy Mount: For objects will not come to us, but have only force to move us to come to them; Eternal Happiness is a fair sight, and spreads its beams, and unveils its beauty, to win our love, and allure and draw us, and if it draw us, we must up and be stirring, and walk on to meet it; 
Climachus.  what that devout Writer saith of his Monk, is true of the Christian, he is assidua naturae violentia, his whole life is a constant continued violence against himself, against his corrupt nature, which as a weight hangs upon him, and clogs and fetters him, which having once shaken off, he not only walks, but runs the ways of God's Commandments.  

Conclus. 1.  Secondly, let us walk honestly, as in the Day, walk 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, as becometh Christians, in our several stations, and conditions of life, and not think Christ dishonoured, if we mingle him with the common Actions of our life; For we never dishonour him more, than when we take him not in, and use him not as our guide and rule, even in those Actions, which for the grossness of the subject, and matter they work on, may seem to have no favour, or relish of that, which we call Religion. Be not deceived; 
Ma●um Rempturb ●i quam comam. ●…ec.  he that thus take●… him in is a Priest & a King, the most honourable person in the world. Behold the profane Gallant, who walks and talks away his l●…e, who divides himself between the comb and the glass, and had rather the Commonwealth should fly in pieces, than one hair or his Periwig should be out of its place, to whom we bow, and cringe to, and sail down to, as to a Golden Calf; I tell you, the meaness Artisan that works with his hands, even he that grinds at the Mill, is more honourable than he. Take the speculative, Fantastic Zealot, the Christian Pharisee, that shuts himself up between the ear and tongue, between hearing much, and speaking more, and doing contrary, the worst Anchoret in the world, being full of Oppression, deceit and bitterness; I may be hold to say, The vilest person, he that sits with the dogs of your Flock, is more Honourable, more righteous than he, and of such, as these, Saint Paul spoke often, 
Philip. 3.18.  and he spoke it weeping, that they did walk, but walk as Enemies to the Cross of Christ.  
Let then Every man move in his own Sphere orderly, abide in the Calling wherein he is called, and in the last place, That we may move with the first mover Christ, the beginner and Author of our walk, Let us take him along with us, in all our ways; Harken what Christ Jesus the Lord will say, That we may walk before him with Reverence, and Godly fear, not sicut vidimus, 
Heb. 11.28.  as we have seen, but look upon one another as the two Cherubims, 1 King. 6. touching and moving one another; but with the Ark of the Testimony in the midst betwixt us, and by that either inciting, or correcting one another in our walk; Secondly, not sicut visum suerit, not as it shall seem good in our own eyes; (for nothing can be more deceitful, than our own thoughts) nor sicut visum spiritui, not as every spirit may move us, which we call Holy, for it may be a lying spirit, and lead us out of our way into those evils, which grieve that Blessed Spirit, whose Name we have thus presumtuously taken in vain. But let us walk, as we have received him, let us join example with the word, & it will be no more as a meteor to misled us, but a bright morning Star to direct us to Christ; correct our fancy by the rule, and it will be sanctum cogitatorium, a Lymbeck, an holy elaboratory of such thoughts, which may fly as the Doves to the windows of heaven; and last of all, try the Spirit by the word (for the word is nothing else but the breathing and voice of the Spirit) and then thou shalt be baptised with the Spirit and fire; the Spirit shall enlighten thee, and the spirit shall purge and cleanse thee, and lead the into all truth; shall breath comfort and strength into thee, in this thy walk and pilgrimage, and thou shalt walk from strength to strength, from virtue to virtue, even till thou come to thy journey's end, to thy Father's house, to that Sabbath & rest, which remains to the Children of God.   

THE FOURTH SERMON.  JOHN 6.56. 
He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me and I in him.  
THese words are our Saviour's; and it was usual with this our good Master, by those things, which were visible to the eye, to lift up his hearers minds and thoughts, to spiritual, and Heavenly things, to draw his discourse from some present occasion, or business in hand. He curseth the figtree, 
Math. 21.19. Sterilitas nostra in Ficu Luke. 11.  which had nothing but leaves, to correct our sterility, and unfruitfulness: at the table of a Pharisee, upon the sight of the clean outside of his cup, he discovers his inward parts full of ravening, and wickedness: At jacob's well, 
john. 4.  he poureth forth to the woman of Samaria the water of life. After he had supped with his disciples, he takes the cup and calls the wine his Blood, 
John. 15.  and himself the true Vine. Thus did Wisdom publish itself in every place, upon every occasion; The well, the Table, the Highway side, every place was a Pulpit, every occasion a Text, and every good lesson, a Sermon.  
To draw down this to our present purpose; In the beginning of this Chapter, he worketh a miracle, multiplies the loaves, and the fishes, that the remainder was more than the whole, a miracle of itself, able to have made the power of god visible in him, and something indeed it wrought with them; for, behold at the 24. v. they seek him, they follow him over the Sea; They ask him; Rabbi when camest thou hither? at the next verse, but our Saviour knowing their hypocrisy, answers them not to what they ask, but instructs them in that they never thought on. Verily, verily, you seek me not for the miracle, but the loaves. v. 26. But behold, I show you yet a more excellent way: I show you bread better than those loaves, better than Moses his manna: behold I am the bread of life v. 48 and my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed, v. 55. and he commends it unto them by three Virtues, or effects, 1. That it fills and satisfies, which neither the loaves, nor Moses his manna could do: For he that cometh to me, that devoteth himself to me, shall never hunger, and he that believeth in me shall never thirst v. 35. 2. It is a living bread, v. 51. a bread that gives life, which Moses manna could not do, but was destroyed with them, that eaten it in the wilderness, v. 49. 3. That it was bread, which had power to incorporate them, to embody them, to make them one, and give them union, and communion with the Lord of life, in the words of my Text, He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood, that is, (as Christ himself, who best knew his own meaning, interprets it) that believeth in me, v. 35. that so feeds on the mystery of my Incarnation, that can look upon my cross to which my flesh was fastened, and there with the eye of faith behold, and wonder at those rich treasuries of wisdom, and Patience, of Humility, of Obedience, and love, which are the truest title, and superscription, which could be written on his Cross: that can look upon the several passages of my blessed Aeconomy, and receive, and digest them, and turn them into nourishment, that can look upon my Birth, and be regenerate, and born again, upon my precepts, and make them his daily bread, upon my Cross and be crucified to the world, upon my Resurrection, and be raised to newness of life, He that thus eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me and I in him.  
You have the occasion, and sum of these words; (for more than an allusion to our eating and drinking in the Sacrament, I cannot see, and that too, though the Church of Rome would have more, is more than we can prove) I may call it the true Character of a Christian, and who could draw it better than Christ? it consists as you see, of two parts. 

1. The Christians, or the Believers part, He dwells in Christ.  
2. Christ's part, he dwells in every man that is Regenerate.    
So that in this our union with Christ, there passeth a double action, one from us to Christ, another from Christ to us; and, as in arched buildings, all the stones do mutually uphold each other, and if you remove and take one away, the rest will fall; so do these two interchangeably hold up and prove one another: For if we dwell not in Christ, Christ will not dwell in us, and if he dwell not in us, it is impossible we should dwell in him; Or we may resemble these two, our relation to Christ, and Christ's to us, to the two Cherubins: Exod. 25. covering the mercy seat with their wings, and their faces one to the other, with the Covenant in the midst between them; and the Cherubins, though they were both Cherubins, and very like, yet were two distinct Cherubins: so though our dwelling in Christ, and Christ's dwelling in us, tend to the same and, yet they are two, and the Covenant is in the midst between them, if we will be his people, he will be our God; if we dwell in him, he will dwell in us. Take it then in these two propositions or Doctrines. 

1. That something, some act is required on our parts, which is here expressed by dwelling in him.  
2. Something is done by Christ, some virtue, some efficacy proceeds from him, which is here called dwelling in us.    
In both which is seen, that mutual, interchangeable reciprocation between Christ, and a Regenerate Soul: as he dwelleth in Christ; so Christ dwelleth in him: and as Christ dwelleth in him, so he dwelleth in Christ; I am my beloved's, and my beloved is mine. He that eateth my flesh. etc.  
We begin with the first, that some act of ours is required, which is here expressed by dwelling in him; Now to dwell in Christ, is a phrase peculiar to this our Evangelist, and he often useth it, both here, and in his first Epistle, and it is full, and expressive, and operative, implying a real, durable interest in him, a reliance and dependence on him alone, not only on his person, (that they are bold to do, who crucify him again) but on his offices, as he is a King to Govern us, a Priest to mediate, and intercede for us, and a Prophet to teach us; such a dependence, which makes us truly his Subjects, his purchase, his Disciples. We usually say, the lover dwells not in himself, but in him he loves, dwells there, and delights in such an habitation, nor is ever satisfied with pleasures of it, as we read Gen. 44. That jacob's soul was bound up with the soul of Benjamin, his life was knit with the young man's life, his life hanged and depended on his; and by this we may discover, what is meant by this phrase; when our souls are bound up with Christ's, when our understandings, wills, and affections, are bound up with his will (for what Cassian speaks of his Monk, is true of the Christian, 
Nescit judicare quis quis didicit perfecto obedire— C●ss l. 4 de instit Canob.  Nescit judicare, he hath no judgement non habet suum velle, he hath no will of his own) when our understandings, wills, and affections are his, as if we were but one flesh, and one blood, and one soul, that we will neither know, nor serve, nor hearken to any, but Christ, that we will have no King, no Priest, no Prophet, but him, than we dwell in him.  
More particularly thus: if we dwell in him, we shall, first discover and admire the majesty of Christ. Secondly, acknowledge his power, and love his command. Thirdly, rely, and depend upon him alone, as our sure castle, and protection. We shall dwell as it were within the Beauty of his rays, within his Jurisdiction, and under the shadow of his wing.  
And 1. if we dwell in him, we shall discover and admire the Majesty of Christ: for we may observe; every thing, that is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, that is in any emenency, sends a kind of Majesty from it, as the Sun doth its Beams, which makes a welcome, and pleasing glide into the minds of men, and at once strikes them with admiration, and love; sometimes it appears in the persons, sometimes in the manners, and behaviour of men; sometimes in the order and policy, of a well governed Commonwealth: so we read, the skin of Moses face after he had talked with God, did shine so bright, that Aaron and the people were afraid to come near him, Exod. 34. So when holy Job went out to the gate, the young men saw him, and hid themselves, and the Aged arose and stood up Job 29.8. and it shows itself in a well ordered Commonwealth; 
Majestas est in imperin, at ●ue in omni Pop. Rom. dignitate Quint. l. 7. instit. c. 3.  it was called majestas pop. Romani, the Majesty of the people of Rome. Now if Christ be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 considered of thee as one in eminnecy, and Supreme, thou wilt behold him, not only fair and lovely, but clothed with Majesty; I do not mean his Majesty, in his transfiguration, when his face did shine as the Sun, and his Disciples fell on theirs; Matth 17. nor his Majesty, when he shall come to judge the quick and the dead (and yet these are fit objects, for the eye of faith to look on) but his Majesty in his cratch, his Majesty in his Humility, his Majesty on the Cross; (for even there the thief discovered it, and it was imputed to him for righteousness, and made the Cross itself a gate and passage into Paradise.) but these are too remote, and for the many, we look upon them as at distance, have so small regard of them, as if they concerned us not, can see Majesty in a lump of flesh, in those that cannot save themselves, sooner than in him we call our Saviour; But then canst thou discover Majesty in him now? Majesty in his discipline, Wisdom in the foolishness of Preaching, his power in weakness now in this life, when he is whipped, and spit upon, and crucified again, when he lies covered over with disgraces and contumelies, when his Precepts are dragged in Triumph after flesh and blood, and whatsoever it dictates; when for one Hosanna, he hath a thousand crucifige's, for one formal Hypocritical acknowledgement, a thousand spears in his sides: when the truth is what we will make it, the Gospel esteemed no more than a fable, and Christ himself (if we look into men's lives) the most disesteemed thing in the World: when thou see●st him in this cloud, in this disfiguration, in this Golgotha, where is thy faith, what eyes hast thou? doth he not still appear a worm, and no man, a man of sorrows? when thou seest him thus, is there any form that thou shouldest desire him? Or dost thou even now see his Glory, as the glory of the only begotten Son of God? 
1 Joh. 1.14. Colos. 2.  doth he now appear to thee, as the head of all principality and power? canst thou see him in that naked Lazar, that persecuted, forlorn imprisoned Saint? doth his majesty shine through the vanities of this World, and make them loathsome, through they labour of Charity, and make it easy, through persecution, and make it joyful? in the midst of rage, and derision, of fury and contumely, is he still to thee, the King of glory? then thou dwellest in him, even in the beauty of holiness.  

2.  Secondly: if we dwell in him, we shall be under his Command; For they who command us, do in a manner, take us into themselves, do possess, and compass, bound and keep us in on every side, and if we dwell in him, we shall be within his reach and power, not have our excursions, and run from him into the streets and highways again, into Bethaven, a house of vanity. I say, we shall be under his command, we shall be his possession, his propriety. For man is a little world, I may say he is a little commonwealth, 
Ter. de Resurrect. carn. c. 40.  Tertullian calls him Fibulam utriusque substantiae, the clasp or button, which ties together his divers substances and natures, the soul and the body, the flesh and the spirit, and these two are contrary one to the other, saith Saint Paul, are carried divers ways, the flesh to that which pleaseth it, and the spirit to that which is proportioned to it, looking on things, neither as delightful, nor irksome, but as they may be drawn in to contribute to the Beauty and perfection of the soul. 
Gal. 5.15.  These lust, and struggle one against the other, and man is the field the Theatre where this battle is fought, and one part or other still prevails. Many times, nay, most times (God help us) the flesh with her sophistry, prevails with the will, to join with her against the spirit; and then sin takes the chair, the place of Christ himself, and sets us hard and heavy tasks; sets us to make brick, but allows us no straw, bids us please and content our self, but affords us no means to work it out. See how Mammon condemns one to the mines, to dig for Metals, and treasure, for that money which will perish with him See how lust fetters another with a look, with the glance of an eye, binds him with a kiss, 
Rom. 11.12.  a kiss that will at last by't like a Cockatrice: see how self love drives us on, as Balaam did his beast, on the point of the sword? thus sin doth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, exercise its force, and power, Lord it, and King it, reign in our mortal bodies. Again sometimes, (and why but sometimes?) but sometimes the will sanctified and upheld, and encouraged by the spirit of Christ, takes the spirits part, determines for it, against the flesh, chooseth any thing which the spirit commends though it be compar'st about with terrors, and fearful apparitions, though it be irksome, and contrary to the flesh, and then we depose Mamman, crucify the flesh, deny ourselves 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 separate ourselves from ourselves, 
Math. 16 24  from our wilfulness and stubbornness and Animosities, and so place Christ in his throne, reinstate ourselves into his house, his family Eph. 3. into his kingdom, that Christ may be all in all.  
And thus it is: whilst this fight, and contention last in us, which will be as long as we last in our mortal bodies; something or other will lay hold on us, will have command over us, (for there is no such aequi librium in a Christian man's life, no time when the scales are so even, or when he hangs, (as Solomon is pictured, between Heaven and Hell) but one side or other still prevails, either we walk after the flesh, when that is most potent; or after the spirit, when that carries us along in our way against the solicitations, and allurements of the flesh; one of them is always uppermost. It will therefore concern us to take a strict account of ourselves, impartially to consider, to which part our will inclines most, whether it be hurried away by the flesh, or lead sweetly, and powerfully on by the spirit, to weigh it well, which of these bears most sway in our hearts; whether we had rather be led by the spirit, or obey the flesh in the lusts thereof; whether we had rather dwell in the world with all its pomp and pageantry, in a Mahometical Paradise of all sensual delights, or dwell with Christ, though it be with persecutions. Suppose the devil should make an overture to thee, as he did once to our Saviour, of all the Kingdoms of the world, and the flesh should plead for herself, as she will be putting in for her share) and show thee honour and power, all that a heart of flesh would leap at, in those Kingdoms; and on the other side, the spirit, thy conscience enlightened should check thee, and pull thee back, and tell thee, that all this is but a false show, that death and destruction are in these kingdoms veiled and dressed up, with Titles of honour, in purple and state; that in this terrestrial Paradise, thou shalt meet with a fiery sword, the wrath of God, and from this imaginary, painted heaven, be thrown into Hell itself. Here now is thy trial; here thou art put to thy choice: if thy heart can now say, I will have none of these; if thou canst say to thy flesh, what hast thou to do with me? who gave thee authority? who made thee a Ruler over me? if thou canst say to the spirit, thou art instead of God to me: if thou canst say with thy Saviour, avoid Satan, I know no power in Heaven or in earth, no dominion, but Christ's, than thou art in his house, in his service (which is no service but the glorious liberty of the sons of God) than thou art in him; thou mayest assure thyself, thy residence, thy abode, thy dwelling is in Christ.  
Thirdly, If we dwell in Christ, we shall rely and depend on him, as on our tutelary God, and Protector, and so we may be said to dwell in him indeed, as in a house, which is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith the Civilian, our fort, and Sanctuary commune perfugium, saith Tull. our common place of refuge, and what is our hope? whither should we fly but to him? I am thine, save me, saith David, because I am thine, because I have none in Heaven but thee, and on earth desire none besides thee: Thou art my House, my Castle, my Fortress and Defence, thou art my Hope to the ends of the World, thou art my Christ.  
And this is a principal mark of a true Christian, of a man dwelling in Christ, that he wholly flings himself into his Protection, that he here fixeth his hope, and doth not busy himself to find any shelter, but here; for as the full persuasion of the Almighty power of God was the first rise to Religion, the fountain from which all worship whether true or false did flow, (for without this persuasion there could be none at all) and we find this relying on his power not only rewarded, but magnified in Scripture, 
Heb. 11.  so the acknowledgement of God's wonderful power in Christ, by which he is able to make good his rich and glorious promises, to subdue his, and our enemies, and do abundantly above all that we can conceive, to work joy out of sorrow, peace out of trouble, order out of confusion, life out of death, is the foundation, the pillar, the life of all Christianity, and if we build not upon this, if we abide not, if we dwell not here, we shall not find a hole to hid our heads. For man, (such is out condition) even when he maketh his nest on high, when he thinks he can never be moved, when he exalteth himself as God, is a weak, indigent, insufficient creature, subject to every blast and breath, subject to misery, as well as to passion, subject to his own, and subject to other men's passions, when he is at his highest pitch, shaken with his own fear, and pursued with other men's malice, rising, soaring up aloft, and then failing, sinking, and ready to fall; and when he falls, looking about for help and secure: when he is diminished and brought low by evil and sorrows, he seeks for some refuge, some hole, some Sanctuary to fly to, as the sieman speaks of the Coneys: they are a generation not strong, and therefore have their Burrows; to hid themselves in. Prov. 30. Now by this you may know you dwell in Christ, if when the tempest come, you are ready to run under his wing, and think of no house, no shelter, no protection but his. Talk what we will of Faith, if we do not Trust, and rely on him, we do not believe in him; For what is faith, but as our Amen to all his promises, our subscription to his Wisdom, and power, and goodness, and here we fix our tabernacle, and will abide till the storm be overpast; Believe in him, and not trust in him? you may say as well the Jews did love him, when they nailed him to his Cross. Why are you fearful, 
Matt. 8.26.  Oh ye of little faith? said Christ to his Disciples; that faith was little indeed, which would let in fear, when Christ the wisdom of the Father, and mighty power of God, was in the ship: little, less than a grain of mustardseed, which is the least of seeds, so little, that what Christ calls here 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 little faith, he plainly calls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 unbelief Matt. 17.20. the faith of this World, the weak and cowardly faith of this world, which speaks of principalities and powers, speaks swelling words, and at the sight of a cloud, which is not so big as a man's hand, striketh in, and is not seen, but leaves us groaning under every burden (for to such a faith, every light affliction is so) leaves us to complaints and despair, or to those inventions, which will plunge us in greater evils, than those we either suffer, or fear. The unbelieving man, he that dwells not in Christ, hath either no place to fly to, or else that he flies to, is as full of molestation and torment, as that which he did fly from; he flies to himself, from himself, he flies to his wit, and that befools him, he flies to his strength, and that overthrows him, he flies to his friend, and he fails him; he asks himself counsel, and mistrusts it, asks his friend Counsel, and is afraid of it, he flies to a reed, for a staff, to impotency, and folly, and hath not what he looked for, when he hath what he looked for, is ever seeking ease, and never at rest; and when these evils without him, stir up a worse evil within him, a confiscience which calls his sins to remembrance, what a perplexed distracted thing is he? what shifts, what evasions doth he catch at? her runs from room to room, from excuse to excuse, from comfort, to comfort, he flutters and flies to and fro, as the Raven, and would rest though it were on the outside of the Ark. This is the condition of those, who are not in Christ, but he that dwelleth in him, that abideth in him, knoweth not what fear is, because he is in him, in whom all the treasuries of Wisdom and power are hid, and so hath ever his protection above him, knows not what danger is, for wisdom itself conducts him, knows not what an enemy is, for power guards him, what misery is, for he lives in the Region of happiness; he that dwells in him, dwells in his armoury, cannot fear, what man, what devil, 
Eph. 7.  what sin can do unto him, because he is in his armoury, abides in him safely as in a Sanctuary, as under his wing. I know whom I have trusted, saith Saint Paul, not the world, not my friends, 
2 Tim 1,12.  not my riches not myself, for not only the world, and riches, and friends, are a thin shelter to keep off a storm, but I know nothing in myself, to uphold myself, but, I know whom I have trusted, my Christ, my King my, Governor and Counsellor, who hath taken me under his roof, who cannot deny himself, but in these evil days, in that great day, will be my patron, my defence, my protection.  
And thus doth the true Christian dwell and abide in Christ: 1. admiring his majesty: 2. Loving his command, and 3. by depending wholly upon his protection: these three fill up our first part, our first proposition, that some act is required on our parts, here expressed by dwelling in him.  

2. part  We pass now to our second; that something is also done by Christ in us, some virtue proceeds from him, which is here called dwelling in us. There goes forth virtue, and power from him, from his promises, and from his precepts, from his life, and from his passion, and death, from what he did, and from what he suffered, as there did to the woman which touched the hem of his garment, that healed her bloody issue; a power by which he sweetly, and secretly, and powerfully characterizeth our hearts, and writes his mind in our minds, and so takes possession of them, and draws them into himself, in the eighth to the Rom. 11. v. the Apostle tells us he dwelleth in us by his spirit, and that we are led by the spirit in the whole course of our life, in the second to the Ephes. the last v. we are said to be the habitation of God through the spirit, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, his tabernacle, his temple, which he consecrates, and sets apart to his own use and service, there is no doubt a power comes from him, but I am almost afraid to say it, there having been such ill use made of it; For though it become already (for the Gospel is the power of God unto salvation) yet is it still expected, expected indeed rather then hoped for, for when it doth come, we shut the door, and set up our will against it, and then look faintly after it, and persuade ourselves, it will come at last, once for all; There is power in his precepts, for our reason subscribes, and signs them for true, there is power in his promises, they shine in glory, 
Rom. 1.16.  these are the power of Christ to every one that believeth, and how can we be Christians, if we believe not? but this is his ordinary power, which like the Sun in common profertur is shown on all at once; There yet goes a more immediate power and virtue from him, 
John 3. ●.  (we deny it not) which like the wind works wonderful effects, but we see not whence it cometh nor whither it goes, neither the beginning, nor the end of it, which is in another World; For the operations of the spirit, by reason they are of another condition, than any other thought, or working in us whatsoever, are very difficult and obscure, as Scotus observes upon the prologue to the sentences, for the manner not to be perceived, no not by that soul, wherein they are wrought, profuisse deprehendas, quomodo prefuerunt non deprehendes, as Seneca in another case, that they have wrought you shall find, but the secret, and retired passages by which they wrought, are impossible to be brought to demonstration.  
But though we cannot discern the manner of his working, yet we may observe, that in his actions, and operations, on the soul of man, he holds the course even of natural agents, in this respect, that they strive to bring in their similitude, and likeness, into those things on which they work, by a kind of force, driving out one contrary with another, to make way for their own form; so Abraham begat Isaac, and Isaac Jacob, and every creature according to its own kind, as Plato said of Sacrates wise say, that they were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the children of his mind, so resembling him, that you might see all Socrates in them. So it is with Christ; where he dwells, he worketh by his spirit something like unto himself, he altars the whole frame of the heart, 
2 Cor. 10.  drives out all that is contrary to him, all imaginations, which axalt themselves against him, never leaves purging, and fashioning us, 
Cal. 4.  till a new creature, like himself, till Christ be fully form in us. So it is with every one in whom Christ dwelleth.  
And this he doth by the power of his spirit: 1. By quickening our knowledge, by showing us the riches of his Gospel, his Beauty and Majesty, the glory and order of his house, and that with that convincing evidence, that we are forced to fall down, and worship, by filling our soul with the glory of it, as God filled the tabernacle with his Exod. 40. that all the powers and saculties of the soul are ravisnt with the sight, and come willingly, as the Psalmist speaks, fall down willingly before him, by moving our soul, as our soul doth our body, that when he says go, we go, and when he says do this, we do it, and so it is in every one in whom Christ dwelleth.  
Secondly, he dwells in us, by quickening and enlivening our faith, so dwells in our hearts by faith, 
Eph. 3.17.  that we are rooted and grounded in love; for we read of a dead faith J●m 2.20. which moves no more in the ways of righteousness, than a dead man sealed up in his grave, and if the Son of man should come, he would find enough of this faith in the World; For from hence, from this, that our faith is not enlivened, that the Gospel is not throughly believed, but faintly received cam formidine contrarit, with fear, or rather a hope, that the contrary is true, from hence proceed all the errors of our lives: from hence ariseth that irregularity, those contradictions, those inconsequences in the lives of men, even from hence, that we have faith, but so as we should have the World; we have it, as if we had it not, and so use it, as if we used it not, or which is worse, abuse it, not believe and be saved, but believe and be damned; and we are vain men, saith Saint James, if we think otherwise, if we think that a dead faith can work any thing; or any thing but death, but when it is quickened, and made a working faith, when Christ dwells in our hearts by faith, than it works wonders, 
Heb. 11.33. 2 Cor. 2,11.  for we read of its valour; that it subdues kingdoms, and stoppeth the mouths of Lions, we read of its policy; that it discovers the devil's enterprises, or devices, of its medicinal virtue, that it purifieth the heart, and we read too furta fidei, the thefts, and pious depredations of faith, stealing virtue from Christ, and taking Heaven by violence, and such a wonderful power it hath in that soul, in which Christ dwelleth, it worketh out our corruption and stampeth his image upon us, it worketh obedience in us, which is called the obedience of faith, that is, that obedience, 
Rom. 1.5.  which is due to faith, and to which faith naturally tendeth, and would bring us to it, if we did not dull, and dead, and hinder it.  
And 1. he worketh in us a universal and equal obedience (for if he dwell in us, every room is his) For there are, saith Parisiensis, particulares voluntates particular wills, or rather particular inclinations, and dispositions to this virtue, and not to another, to be liberal, and not temperate, sober, but not chaste, to fast, and hear, and pray, but not to do acts of mercy, which are virtues but in appearance, and proceed from rotten, unsound principles, from a false spring, but not from Christ, and so make up a spiritual Hermaphrodite, a good speaker, and a bad live, a Jew, and a Christian, 
Deus in uno homine Syllas suisse credideris, Valerius Max. l. 6. c 9  a Herod, and a John Baptist, a Zealot a Phinehas, and an Adulterer, and as the Historian said, two Sylla's in one man, like a playbook, and a Sermon bound up together; But these I told you, are not true virtues, but proceed many times from the same principles, which their vices do, (for I may be a Hypocrite, and a man of Belial for the same and) but where Christ dwells he purgeth the whole house, not one, but every faculty of the soul, that is the whole man: as he raised not a part, but all Lazarus, for if any part yet favour of rottenness and corruption, we cannot say, that Lazarus is risen; He worketh I say an universal, equal obedience, which as a Circle, consists in an equality of life, in every respect answering to the command, and working of Christ, as a circle doth, in every part, look upon the point, or Centre.  

2.  Secondly, 
Col. 2.5.  he works in us an even, and constant obedience, the Apostle calls it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the firmity and steadfastness of our faith in Christ; For as the Philosopher well observes, that the affections do but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 lightly move us, raise some motion in the mind, 
Artic. l. 2. Ethic. c. 1.5.  trouble us, and vanish; so that one affection many times drives out another, as Amnon did Tamar, our love ending in battered, and our sorrow in anger, and our fear in joy; But from virtue we are said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be strongly disposed to be confirmed, and established in our actions: so the reason of that unevenness, that instability, that inconstancy in the conversation of men, that they are now loud in their Hosanna, and anon, a loud in their Crucifige; now in Abraham's bosom, and anon into Dalilahs' lap, now fight, anon cursing, now very seraphical, and anon wallowing in the mire, is from this, that they have no other motive, no other principle, than peradventure, some private respect, or some weak impression of some good lesson they have lately heard, some faint radiations from the truth, and therefore can arise no higher than the Fountain, and will soon run out with it; now, it is not so with the true Christian, in whom Christ dwelleth; for he moves with the Sun, which never starts out of his sphere, hath Christ living in him, and the power of the Gospel assisting him in every motion; and so cannot have these qualms of devotion, these waver, this unevenness, these Cadi-surgia as the Father calls them, 
Ephr. Sycus 1 John 3.9. 1 Pet. 1.5.  these rise, and fall, these marches and Halts, these proffers, and relapses, because Christ is living in him, because the seed of God abideth in him, and he is kept by this power of Christ unto salvation.  
Thirdly, he worketh a sincere, and real obedience in that heart in which he dwells, and this is proper to the true Christian; For the actions of an hypocrite are not natural, but artificial, not the actions of a living soul, but like unto the motions of that Artificial body, which Albertus made, not proceeding from any life in them, but forced as it were by certain wheels, and Engines, by love of a good Name, by fear of smart, or hope to bring their purposes about, and thus many times he walks to his end in the habit of a Saint, when no other appearance will serve; but where Christ dwells, there is his spirit, and where his spirit is, there is truth, and he fashioneth and shapeth out our affections to the things themselves, makes our affections such, as so fair an object requires; that as his promises, so our affections are yea, and Amen, that as his reward is real, so is our love to it real, as the Gospel and Heaven and Christ is true, so are our affections towards them hearty and sincere; true as he is true, and faithful as he is faithful. So then (to conclude this) Christ dwelleth in every true Christian, not as a contracted, or divided Christ, as the Ancient Heretics made him, but dwells, as the Apostle speaks, fully and plentifully in him. Secondly, he dwells in him as Christ yesterday, and to day, and the same for ever; not as Baal, now preent with us, and anon asleep; Lastly, he dwelleth in him, not as Martion blasphemed, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, in a phantasm or apparition, (for so he is in every hypocrite) but true and perfect God by the same power his father gave him, as truly dwelling in him by his virtue and efficacy, as he now doth in glory in the highest Heavens.  
And now we have seen both the parts. 1. Our part to dwell in him. 2. His gracious act to dwell in us: let us a little look aback upon this great light, and see what matter it will further afford us for our instruction.  
And 1. we must look back upon the resemblance; the two Cherubins, and see how they keep their places, and not turn away the face, but eye each other continually; and by them learn, not to turn away from Christ, but to look up upon the finisher of our faith, as he looks upon us, to dwell in him as he dwells in us, which makes up our union and communion with Christ, knits us together in the bond of love. For as it is between Christ and his Father, so it must be between us and him: 
John 14.12. John. 17.  I am in the Father, and the Father in me, and all mine is thine, and thine mine, and I glorify him, and he glorifies me, (and that relation betwixt him, and his Father is the ground, and foundation of that reference, that union which is between Christ and a regenerate soul) and then see how it echoes between them? my beloved is mine, and I am my well beloved's, I know my sheep, and my sheep know me, they dwell in me, and I in them. Oh auras vices, Oh happy interchanges; Oh blessed Reciprocation, when Christ looks upon us in love; and we look back upon him in faith, working by love; when he shines upon us with all his Graces, and we reflect back again upon him, not in his person (for he needs it not,) being the fullness of him, that filleth all things, but upon him in ourselves, and searching the inward man, and decking and preparing a place for him: upon him in that poor Lazar, in those his brethren, and our brethren; nay, upon him even in our enemies; for even in them, 
Matt. 5.44  he is pleading for them, and commanding us to love them; I say unto you, love your enemies. Nay further yet, reflect upon him in his Enemies, and can Christ be in his enemies? not indeed, so near, as to dwell in them, but so near unto them as to call unto thee, to pray for them to pity them, 
John. 10,16  to restore them: for even they may be in the number of those his other sheep: which he will bring into his ford. Oh remember the resemblance, but withal remember the thing too, and be very careful to uphold this relation, this blessed reciprocation between Christ and thy soul.  

2.  Secondly, from this great sight; Christ dwelling in man, and man in Christ, 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  let us rouse up ourselves, and take courage to set a price vupon ourselves, (as Pythagoras counselled) to honour and reverence ourselves, to remember we are men and so have something of God in us, are made partakers of the high calling in Jesus Christ, and not to debase, and dishonour ourselves, to become vile in our imaginations, and place them on that, which is so far below the exalted nature of man. And shall I persuade you to think well of yourselves? I may as well make use of Logic, and raise arguments to prevail with a hungry man to eat, for how greedily do we suck in air? and what a perfume is the death of fools? in what perfection of beauty would we be seen to every man? in what shape of glory would we be fixed up in their sancy? what gods would we be taken for? and then praise is a sweet note, and we delight to hear it? but what a Thunderclap is a reproach? how sick are we of a reprehension? what a loss is the loss of another man's thought? what an Anathema is it, ('tis a vulgar phrase) to be out of his books? and yet, in the midst of all disgraces, and calamities, when we are made the scorn of the World, when fools laugh at us, and drunkards sing of us, nay, when wisemen condemn us amongst them all, there is none entertain a viler thought of us, than we do of ourselves; for we think ourselves good for nothing, but to be evil. We think indeed we highly honour ourselves, when we taken ethe upper seat; and place others at our footstool, when with Herod we put on royal apparel, and make us a name; when men bow before us, and call us their Lords; we think so, and this thought dishonours us, degrades us from that high honour, we were created to: for is not the life better than meat? and the body than raiment, is not the soul better than all these? then we honour ourselves, when we beat down our bodies, when we beat down our minds, and make ourselves equal to them of low degree. than we tread the ways of honour, look towards our Original, the rock out of which we were hewed, are Candidates of bliss, stand for a place in Heaven, to sit with Abraham and Isaac in the kingdom of God. 
Synes ep. 57  For man is a creature of high descent 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an honourable creature, of a noble extraction; honourable no doubt, for whom the Son of God was content to die, only that he might dwell in him, and if Christ, who knew well the worth of a soul, did so honour as to unite our nature in his person, and lift up himself upon his Cross, to draw our persons after him, then will it necessarily follow, (and ingratitude itself could not deny the consequence) that we also ought to honour ourselves, and not to fall under the vanity of the creature in a base disesteem of ourselves, as if we were fit for nothing, but to be fuel for hell: in a word, not to make that, a stews of unclaenness, a forge of all mischief, a workhouse of all iniquity, which Christ did choose to make his House to dwell in, his Temple to sit in, and his Heaven to reign in. Oh, let us remember our high extraction, our heavenly calling, and not thus uncover ourselves, be thus vile, and base in the sight and presence of Christ.  

3.  And that we may thus honour ourselves, our third inference shall be for caution; that we do not deceive ourselves, and think that Christ dwells in us, when we carry about us but slender evidence that we dwell in him: For it is an easy matter to be deceived, and we never fall with such a slide and easiness into any error, as into that, which is most dangerous, and fatal to the soul. In the affairs of this life, Lord, how cautelous are we? We ask counsel, we look about us, we use our own eyes, and we borrow other men's eyes, and if we be overreached, how discontent and crestfallen we are, as those who have been beaten in battle, and have lost the day: but in that, which most concerns us, we seek out many inventions, we harken to every false Prophet; to ourselves the worst counsellors that are; we study to be deceived, and count it a punishment to be taught. And thus we see, some flattering him with their lips, 
Errantis p●…na est doceri, Plat.  some breathing forth blasphemy, and yet all Christians; some oppressors grinding his face, some revengers piercing his sides, the Sacrilegious robbing him, most treading him underfoot, and yet all Christians; some free from gross and open, yet full of speculative, and secret sins, of envy, malice, and rancour, and yet Christians. But not deceived: Christ may dwell in us, with our infirmities, so they be but infirmities, but not with our wilfulness and hypocrity; he that taketh courage to venture on a sin, because it is a little one, makes it a great one, and 'tis not infirmity, but presumption) Christ, saith Saint Bernard, was born indeed in a stable, but not in a sty, and will bear with something that savours of the man, of the brutish part of the man, but not with those foul pollutions, those wilful abominations, not with those sins which lay waste the conscience, and devour all that better part, all that is spirit within us; He is indeed, a House, a Sanctuary for every troubled soul, but not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a common receptacle for all offenders, as Celsus bitterly urged against Christ in Origen) not a companion for thiefs and harlots, but a Physician to heal them, not a House for every thief to lurk in, nor a Temple for Satyrs and profane persons to dance in. If we dwell in Christ, we dwell in a Lamb, which we cannot do with so much of the Lion and Viper, so much rage, so much malice and venom within us.  
Last of all; some there be (and that not a few) who think they dwell in Christ, when they join themselves to such a Church, such a company, such a Congregation, think themselves in the Habitations of peace, when they are in the tents of Ke●ar, of bloacknesse and darkness; and this is the great error of those of the Church of Rome, which draws with it all the rest, bears a train like the red Dragon's tail in the Revealtion, which swept down a third part of the stars, and cast them to the earth. For doth she not in a manner tell us, that within her Territories we are safe upon what terms soever we stand with Christ, and though we dwell in Christ, that is, perform all Christian duties, yet if we dwell not in her, be not incorporated with her, our faith, our hope, all our endeavours are in vain, and so instead of a Church, have set upoan Idol, as great an Idol as they have made the Virgin Mary; For the one as well as the other must go for a mother of mercy. And do we not with grief behold it so in other factions, though as distant from this, as the East is from the West? do they not meet in this, to count all goats, that are not within their fold; to leave no way to happiness, but in their company; do not they look upon their condition, as most deplorable, who do not cast in their lots with them, who are not of the same collection, and discipline, of their fraternity, which they call the Church of Christ, why should men thus flatter themselves? 'tis not our joining to this particular Church, or that new fancied, and new gathered Congregation, but our dwelling in Christ, our eating his flesh, and drinking his blood, our feeding on, and digesting his Doctrine, and Growing thereby, can make us Christians, and as an unnecessary separating myself from; so an uncharitable, and supercilious uniting myself with this, or that Congregation may endanger my estate, and title in Christ, and my dwelling in the one, (if I take not heed) may dispossess me of the other. For, I conceive, there is no policy, no discipline so essential to the Church, as piety, as our obedience to Christ. Suppose I were in a wilderness? did my soul lie, as David speaks, amongst Lions, yet might I dwell in Christ: be the government and outward policy what it will; nay, be there but a slender appearance of any, yet might I dwell in Christ; nay, did persecution seal up the Church doors, and leave no power to censure inordinate livers; were there no more left than a dic fratri, tell it to thy brother between thee and him, yet could I dwell in Christ, else why was their faith commended, who wandered up and down in Sheepskins, and Goatskins, in Deserts and Mountains, in Dens, and Caves of the earth? but then, 
Heb. 11.  if we dwell not in Christ; if we do not love him, and keep his Commandments, I cannot see, what Church, what Congregation can be a Sanctuary to shelter us, and our crying the Church, the Church, will be but as the Jews crying the Temple, the Temple of the Lord, but as the sound of brass, or tinkling of a Cymbal, a sad knell, and fearful sign and indication of men departed from Christ, and cast out of doors, being dead in their sins. Oh then, let us take heed, as the Apostle exhorts, that no root of bitterness spring up to trouble us, and thereby to trouble, corrupt, 
Heb. 12.15.  and defile many; that we bless not ourselves in our hearts, and say we shall have peace, when we walk in these unpeaceable imaginations; call that Religion, which is indeed sensuality: for when one says I am of Paul, and another I am of Apollo's, 
1 Cor. 2.4.  when one says, I am of this Congregation, and another, I am of that, are yet not carnal? and (we may observe) he doth not say, when one is, or when one thinketh he is, but when he says, that he is, when he is so pleased, and delighted in it, so rests upon it, that he must vent and preach, and publish it to the prejudice, and censure of others, then when they thus say it, are they not carnal? Do they not please themselves, and commit folly in their own souls; where Pride mixeth and engendereth with covetousness and worldly respects, and begets malice, debate, envy, backbiting, persecution, let us then take heed of this; of this root of bitterness, that beareth gall and wormwood, and let us watch over ourselves, that we embrace not a name, for a thing, a Company, for a Church, our humour, and fancy for Christ, and that we do not so join ourselves with others, that we lose our hold, and place in Christ.  
And therefore in the last place, let us make a strict survey, let us impartially commune with our own hearts, and see how we have held up the relation between Christ and us, whether we can truly say, we are his people, and he is our God; this added to the rest makes up a number, an account, without this our joining with such a body, such a company, nay our appearing in his Courts, our naming him, and calling upon his name, are but cyphers and signify nothing: 'tis not the Church, but the spirit of Christ, and our own consciences, which can witness to us, that we are inhabitants of the new Jerusalem, and dwell in Christ, we read in the 45. of Gen. that when Jacob had news that his son Joseph lived, his heart fainted; for he believed them not; but at the sight of the chariots, which Joseph sent to carry him, his spirit revived; so it is here: when we shall be told, or tell ourselves (for ourselves are the likeliest to bring the news) that we have been of such a Church, of such a Congregation, and applaud ourselves for such a poor, and unsignificant information, bless ourselves, that the lines are fallen unto us in so goodly a place, when we shall have well looked upon, and examined all the privileges, and benefits we can gain, by being parts of such a body, all this will not assure us, nor fix our anchor deep enough, but will leave us to be tossed up and down upon the waves of uncertainty, will leave us fainting, and panting under doubt and unbelief; For (to recollect all in a word.) Our admiring his Majesty, our loving his command, our relying on his protection, and resting under the shadow of his wing: Again, our ense, and feeling of the operation of the spirit of Christ, by the practic efficacy of our knowledge, the actuation and quickening of our faith, and the power of it, working a universal, constant, sincere obedience, these are the chariots, which Christ sends to carry us out of Egypt, unto our celestial Canaan, and when we feel these, and by a sweet and well gained experience feel the power of them in our souls; then we draw near in full assurance; then we shall joy fully cry out with Jacob; it is enough: then we shall know, that our Joseph is alive, and that Christ doth dwell, and live in us of a truth.  
And now to conclude, 
Concl.  and by way of conclusion, to enforce all these, to imprint and fasten them in your hearts, what other motive need I use then the thing itself? Christ in man, and man in Christ: for if honour, or delight, or riches will move us, here they are all, not as the world giveth them; but as truth itself giveth them, a sight into which the Angels themselves did stoop, and desire to look into. To be in Christ, to dwell in Christ, if a man did perfectly believe it of himself, that he were the man, non diusuperstes maneret said Luther, he would even be swallowed up, and die of immoderate joy. Here now is life and death set before us, Heaven and Hell opened to our very eye: if we do not dwell in him, if we be not united with him, we shall join ourselves with something else, with flesh and blood, with the glory and vanity of the world, which will but wait upon us to carry us to our grave, feed us up and prepare us for the day of slaughter: Oh who would dwell in a Land darker than darkness itself? who would be united with death? But then, if we dwell in him, and he in us, if he call us, my little children, and we cry Abba Father, then: what then? who can utter it? the tongue of men and Angels cannot express it, then as he said to the Father, all thine are mine, and mine thine, so all his is ours, and all that is ours is his: our miseries are his, and when we suffer, we do but fill up that which was behind of the affliction of Christ. 
Col. 2.24.  He is in bonds, in disgrace, in prison with us, and we bear them joyfully, for we bear them with him, who beareth all things: our miseries, nay, our sins are his; he took them upon his shoulder, upon his account; he sweat, he groaned, he died under them, and by dying took away their strength, nay, our good deeds are his, and if they were not his, they were not good; for by him we offer them unto God, by his hand, in his name, he is the Priest that prepares and consecrates them, our prayers, our preaching, our hearing, 
Heb. 13.15  our alms, our fasting, if they were not his, were but as the Father calls the Heathen man's virtues, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a fair name, a title of health upon a box of poison, 
Nazianz.  the letter Tan written in the forehead of a reprobate.  
Again, (to make up the reciprocation) as all ours are his, so all his are ours; what shall I say, his poverty, his dishonour, his sufferings, his Cross are ours; yes, they are ours, because they are his; if they had not been his, they could not be ours, none being able to make satisfaction but he, none that could transfer any thing upon man, but he that was the Son of man, and Son of God, and his Miracles were orus; For, for us men, and for our Salvation were they wrought: His Innocency, his purity, his Obedience are ours; For God so deals with us, for his sake, as if we were, as if we ourselves had satisfied.  
Let St. Paul conclude for me, in that divine and heavenly close of his third Chap. of the 1. Ep. to the Cor. whether Paul or Apollo, or Cephas, or the word, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come, all are yours, and you are Christ's, and Christ is Gods, and if we be Christ's, then be we heirs, joint heirs with Jesus Christ, as he is heir, so have we in him, right and title, to be heirs, and so we receive eternal happiness, not only as a gift, but as an inheritance; in a word, we live with him, we suffer with him, we are buried with him, we rise with him, and when he shall come again in glory, we who dwell in him now, shall be ever with him, even dwell and reign with him for evermore.   

THE FIFTH SERMON.  
EZEKIEL 33.11. 
As I live, saith the Lord, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked. Turn ye, Turn ye from your evil ways: For why will you die oh House of Israel.  
WE have here a sudden and vehement outcry; Turn ye, Turn ye, and those events which are sudden and vehement (the Philosopher tells us) do 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, do leave some notable mark and improssion behind them; an Earthquake shakes, and dislocates the Earth; a Whirlwind rends the Mountains, and breaks in pieces the Rocks; what is sudden, at once strikes us with fear and admiration.  
Certainly reverenter pensandum est, saith the Father, 
Greg, in le●.  This call of the Prophet requires a serious, and reverend Consideration: For if this vehement ingemination be not sharp and keen enough to enter our Souls, and divide asunder the joints and the marrow; here is a quare moriemini; a Reason, to set an edge on them; if his Gracious and Earnest call, his Turn, and his Turn will not Turn us, he hath placed Death in the way, that King of Terrors, to affright us; If we be not willing to die, we must be willing to Turn; If we will hear Reason; we must hearken to his Voice; and if he thus sends his Prophets after us, sends forth his voice from Heaven after us; if he make his Justice and mercy his joint Commissioners to force us back; If he invite us to Turn, and threaten us, if we do not Turn; either Love, or Fear must prevail with us, to Turn with all our Hearts.  
And in this is set forth the singular Mercy of our most Gracious God, parcendo admonet, ut corrigamur poenitendo; before he strikes, he speaks: When he bends his Bow, when his deadly arrows are on the string; yet his warning flies, before his shaft; his word is sent out, before the judgement; the lightning is before his Thunder, Ecce, saith Origen, antequam Vulneramur, monemur; when we (as the Israelites here) are running on into the very Jaws of Death; when we are sporting with our Destruction in articulo mortis, when Death is ready to self on us, and the pit opens her mouth, to take us in; he calls and calls again, Turn ye, Turn ye from your evil Ways, and if all this be too little, if we still venture on, and drive forward in forbidden and dangerous ways, he draws a Sword against us, sets before us, the horror of Death itself; Quare moriemini? Why will you die? still it is his word, before his blow; his Convertimini, before his moriemini, his praelusoria arma, before his Decretoria; his blunt before his sharp; his Exhortations, before the Sentence: non parcit ut parcat, non miseretur, ut misereatur; he is full in his Expressions, that he may be sparing in his wrath; he speaks words clothed with Death, That we may not die, and is so severe, as to threaten Death, that he may make room for his Mercy, and not inflict it; Why will you die? there is Virtue and Power in it, to quicken and rouse us up; to drive us out of our Evil ways, that we may live for ever.  
This is the sum of these words: The parts are Two. 1. An Exhortation, and Secondly an Obtestation, or Expostulation: or a Duty; and a Reason urging, and enforcing that Duty: The Exhortation, or Duty is plain, Turn ye, Turn ye from your Evil ways; The Obtestation or Reason as plain, Quarè moriemini? Why will ye Dye, oh House of Israel? I call the Obtestation or Expostulation, a Reason; and good Reason I should do so; for the Moriemini is a good Reason; That we may not Die, a good Reason why we should Turn; but tendered to us by way of expostulation, is another reason, and makes the reason operative, and full of efficacy; makes it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a reason invincible, unanswerable; For this very expostulation, is an Evidence fair and plain enough, that he would not have us die; and then 'tis as plain; That if we die, we have killed and destroyed ourselves against his will: Of these two then in their order; and first of the exhortation, and Duty, in which we shall pass by these steps, or degrees; 1. Look up upon the Author; consider, whose exhortation it is. 2ly, The Duty itself; and in the last place, pugnacem calorem, that lively, and forcible heat of Iteration and Ingemination, Convertimini, Convertimini, Turn ye, Turn ye; the very life and soul of Exhortation.  
Turn ye, Turn ye, saith the Lord.  
And first, we ask, Quis? who is he that is thus urgent, and earnest? and as we read, it is Ezekiel the Prophet, and of Prophets, Saint Peter tells us that they spoke 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, 
2 Pet. 1.21.  as they were moved by the Spirit of God; and they received the word, non auribus, sed animis, not by the hearing of the ear; but by inspiration, and immediate Revelation; by a divine Character, 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Bas in Isai. vis. 1.  and impression made in their souls; so that this Exhortation to Repentance, will prove to be an Oracle from Heaven, to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, to be a Divine and Celestial remedy, to be the prescript of Wisdom itself, and to have been written with the finger of God.  
And indeed we shall find that this duty of Turning, the true nature of Repentance, was never taught in the School of Nature, never found in its true effigies and Image, in all its lines and Dimensions, in the books of the Heathen. The Aristotelians had their Expiations; the Platonics their purgations; The pythagoreans their Erinnys; but not in relation to God, or his Divine Goodness and Providence; 
Tert. de poenit.  Et à ratione ejus tantum absuit, quantum à rationus autore, and were as fare to seek of the true reason, and Nature of Repentance, as they were of the God of reason himself: many useful lessons they have given us, and some imperfect descriptions of it, but those did rise no higher than the spring from whence they did flow, from the Treasure of Nature, and therefore could not lift them up to the sight of that peace and rest which is eternal; They were as waters to refresh them, and they that tasted deepest of them, had most ease, and by living 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, according to the directions of Nature, gained that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, that Peace and composedness of mind, which they called their Happiness, and was all they could attain to. Tully and Cato had not such divided, distracted souls, as Catiline, and Cethegus; Seneca and hadnot those ictus & laniatus, 
Aristot. l. 1. Eth. c. 13.  those Gashes and Rents in his heart, as Nero had; even their Dreams were more sweet and pleasant, than those of other men; as being the resultancies, and Echoes of those virtuous Actions, which they drew out in themselves by no other hand, then that of Nature; which looked not beyond that frailty, which she might easily discover in herself, and so measured out their happiness but by the Span, by this present life; or if she did see a glimpse and faint show, of a future estate, she did but see, and guess at it, and knew no more. Reason itself did Teach them thus much, that sin was unreasonable; 
Tert. de poenit.  Nature itself had set a mark upon it, omne malum aut timore, aut pudore suffudit, had either struck vice pale, or died it in a blush; did either lose their joints, or change their Countenance, and put them in mind of their deviation from her rules, by the shame of the fact, and the fear they had to be taken in it; which two made up that fraenum naturae, that bridle of Nature, to give them a checque, and Turn, but not unto the Lord. For were there their Heaven nor Hell, neither reward nor punishment, yet whilst we carry about with us this ligh tof Reason, sin must needs have a soul face, being so unlike unto Reason, and if we would suffer her to come in to rescue, when our lose affections are so violent, we should not receive so many foils as we do; a naturâ sequitur ut meliora probantes, 
Quint. l. 6. c. 6.  peiorum poeniteat, Not to sin, to forsake sin, Nature itself teacheth; but Nature never pointed out to this board, this plank of Repentance, to bring a shipwrackt soul to that haven of rest, which is like itself, and for which it was made Immortal. Turn ye, turn ye, is dictum Domini, a Doctrine, which came down from Heaven, and was brought down from thence by him, who brought life and Immortality to light. For it was impossible, that it should ever have fallen within the conceit of any reasonable creature, to set down and determine, what satisfaction was to be made for an offence committed against a God of Infinite Majesty, what fit recompense could God receive from the hand of Dust and Ashes? what way could they find out to redeem themselves, who were sold under sin? Ten thousand Worlds were too little to pay down for the least of those sins, which we drink down, as an Ox doth water; The Ocean would not wash off the least spot, that defiles us; all the beasts of the Mountains will not make a sacrifice, spiritus fractus sacrificia Dei, 
Psal. 51. Naz Or. 3.  other Sacrifices have been the Inventions of men, of the Chaldeans and Cyprians, and but occasionally, and upon a kind of Necessity, providently enjoined by God: but a relenting, Turning Heart, 
Naz. Or. 15.  is his Sacrifice, nay his Sacrifices, instar omnium, worth all the Sacrifices in the world; his own Invention, his own Injunction; his own dictum; his own command, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, he hath but one Sacrifice, and that is the sacrifice of purgation; a cleansed; purged, Contrite heart, a new Creature. For when the Inventions of men were at a stand; when discourse and reason were posed, and cold make no progress at all in the ways of Happiness, not so fare as to see our want and need of it; when the Earth was barren, and could not bring forth this seed of Repentance; Deus eam sevit, saith Tert. 
Lib. de poenit.  God himself sowed it in the world, made it publici juris, known to all the world; That he would accept of a Turn of true Repentance, as the only means to wash away the guilt of sin, and reconcile the Creature to his Maker; so that, as Theodoret called the Redemption of mankind, the fairest, and most eminent part of God's Providence and Wisdom; so may we too, give Repentance a Place, and share, as without which the former, in respect of any benefit, which can arise to us, is frust rate & of no effect. 
Quod fieri posse Cicero non putavit, & Lact. l. 6 de ver. cult. c. 24.  A thing indeed it is which may seem strange to flesh and blood, and Lactantius tells us, that Tully thought it impossible, but a strange thing it may seem, that the sigh of a broken heart, should slumber a Tempest, That our sorrow should bind the hands of Majesty, that our Repentance should make God himself repent, and our Turn, Turn him from his wrath, and a change in us, altar his Decree; and therefore to julian that cursed Apostate, it appeared in a worse shape, not only as strange, but as ridiculous, and where he bitterly derides Constantine for the profession of Christianity, he makes up his scoff with the contempt and derision of Repentance, 
Julian. Caesar.  〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, and whosoever is a corrupter or defiler of Women, whosoever is a , whosoever is an unclean Person, may be secure; 'tis but dipping himself in a little water, and he is forthwith clean, yea, though he wallow again, and again in the same mire; pollute himself with the same monstrous sins; let him but say, he hath sinned, and at the very word, the sin vanisheth; let him but Smite his breast, or strike his forehead, and he shall presently, without more ado, become as white as snow; And 'tis no marvel to hear an Apostate blaspheme (for his Apostasy itself, was blasphemy) no more, then 'tis to hear a Devil Curse; both are fallen from their first estate, and both hate that estate, from whence they are fallen, and they both howl together for that which they might have kept, and would not: upon Repentance, there is Dictum Domini, thus saith the Lord, and this is enough to shame all the wit; and confute all the Blasphemy of the world; As I live, saith the Lord, I will not the death of a sinner, but that he Turn: and in this consists the Privilege and power of our Turn; this makes Repentance a Virtue, and by this word, this Institution, and the Grace of God annexed to it, A Turn shall free us from Death; a Tear shall shake the powers of Heaven; a repentant Sighs shall put the Angels into Passion; and our Turning from our Sin shall Turn God himself, even Turn him from his fierce wrath, and strike the Sword out of his hand.  
Turn ye, Turn ye, then is Dictum Domini, a voice from Heaven, a command from God himself; And it is the voice and dictate of his Wisdom, an Attribute which he much delights in, more than in any of the rest, saith Naz. 
Orat. 1.  for it directs his power, for whatsoever he doth, is done in wisdom, in Order, Number, and Measure, whatsoever he doth, is best: his rain falls not, his Arrows fly not, but where they should, to the mark, which his Wisdom hath set up; It accompanies his Justice, and make his ways equal, in all the disproportion and dissimilitude, which can show itself to an eye of flesh: It made all his Judgements and Statutes; It breathed forth his Promises, and Menaces, and will make them good; in Wisdom he made the Heavens; and in Wisdom he kindled the fire of Hell; nothing can be done in this world, or the next, which should not be done: Again, it order his Mercy, for though he will have Mercy on whom he will have Mercy; yet he will not let it fall, but where he should, not into any Vessel, but that which is fit to receive it: for his Wisdom is over all his works, as well as his Mercy; he would save us, but he will not save us without Repentance; he could force us to a Turn, and yet I may truly say, he could not, because he is wise; he would not have us die, and yet he will desTroy us, if we will not Turn; he doth nothing, either good or evil to us, which is not convenient for him, and agreeable to his wisdom. Nor can this bring us under the Imputation of too much boldness, to say; The Lord doth nothing, but what is convenient for him (for 'tis not boldness to magnify his wisdom) They rather come too near, and are bold with Majesty, who fasten upon him those Counsels, and determinations, which are repugnant, and opposite to his wisdom, and goodness, and which his soul hates, as, That headed Decree to make some men miserable, to that end, that he might make his Mercy glorious, in making them happy; that he did of purpose wound them, that he might heal them; That he did threaten them with Death, whose names he had written in the book of Life; That he was willing man should sinne, that he might forgive him; That he doth exact that Repentance, as our Duty, which himself will work in us, by an irresistible force; That he commands, intreats, beseeches others to Turn and Repent, whom himself hath bound, and fettered by an absolute Decree, that they shall never Turn; That he calls them to Repentance and Salvation, whom he hath damned from all eternity, and if any, certainly such Beasts as these, deserve to be struck through with a Dart. No, 'tis not boldness, but Humility and Obedience to his will, to say, He doth nothing, but what becometh him; what his wisdom doth justify, and he hath abounded towards us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Saint tPaul, 
Ephe. 1.8.  in all Wiedome and Prudence; His wisdom finds out the means of Salvation, and his Prudence orders, and disposeth them; his wisdom shows the way to life, and his Prudence leads us through it, to the end; I Wisdom was from everlasting; 
Proverb. 8.  and as she was in initio viarum, in the beginning of God's ways, so she was, in initio Evangelii, in the beginning of the Gospel, which is called the wisdom of God unto salvation; and she fitted and proportioned means to that end; means which were most agreeable, and connatural to it; It found out a way to conquer Death, 
Heb. 2.14.  and him that hath the power of Death, the Devil, with the weapons of Righteousness; to dig up sin by the very Roots, that no work of the flesh, might shoot forth out of the Heart any more, to destroy it in its effects; that though it be done, yet it shall have no more force, then if it were annihilated, then if it had never been done, and to destroy it in its causes, that it may be never done again; 
Immutabile, quod factum est: Quint l. 7.  to draw together Justice and Mercy, which seemed to stand at distance, and hinder the work, and to make them meet, and kiss each other in Christ's Satisfaction and ours (for our Turn is our satisfaction, all that we can make) which she hath joined together, 
Condigna est satisfatio mald facta corrigere, est correcta non reiterare. Ber. de Just. Dom. c. 1. Satisfactio, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Antiochens, conc. can 2.  never to be severed; his Sufferings, with our Repentance; his Agony with our sorrow, his Blood with our Tears, his Flesh nailed to the Cross, with our lusts Crucified, his death for sin, with our Death to it; his Resurrection with our Justification: For he bore our sins, that he might cast them away; He shed his blood, to melt our Hearts, and he died that we might live, and turn unto the Lord: and he risen again for our Justification; and to gain Authority to the doctrine of Repentance: Our convertimini, our Turn is the best Commentary on the consummatum est, it is Finished; for that his last Breath, breathed it into the world; we may say, It is wrapped up in the Inscription, Jesus of Nazareth King of the Jews; for in him, even when he hung upon the Cross, were all the Treasuries of Wisdom and Knowledge hid. 
2 Coloss. 3.  In him Justice and Mercy are at Peace, for to reconcile us unto God, he reconciled them one to another. The hand of Mercy was lifted up, ready to seal our Pardon; we were in our Blood, and her voice was Live; we were miserable, and she was ready to relieve us; our heart was sick, and her bowels yearned; but then Justice held up the Sword, ready to latch in our sides; God loves his Creature, whom he made; but hates the sinner, whom he could not make; and he must, and yet is unwilling to strike: If Justice had prevailed, Mercy had been but as the morning Dew, and soon va●…sh'd before this raging heat, and if Mercy had swallowed up Justice in victory, his hatred of sin, and fearful menaces against it had been but bruta fulmina, and had portended nothing; 
Deus purgari homines à peccato maxime cupit, ideoque agere poenitentiam jubet. Lact. l. 6. c. 24.  had been void, and of no effect; If he had been extreme to mark what is done amiss, men had sinned more, and more, because there could be no hope of Pardon; and if his Mercy had sealed an absolute Pardon, men would have walked delicately, and sported in their Evil ways, because there could be no fear of punishment. And therefore his wisdom drew them together, and reconciled them both, in Christ's propitiatory Sacrifice, and our Duty of Repentance; the one freeing us from the Gild, the other from the Dominion of sin; and so both are satisfied, Justice lays down the sword, and Mercy shines in perfection of Beauty. God hates sin, but he sees it condemned in the flesh of his Son, and fought against by every member he hath; sees it punished in him, and sees it every day punished, in every repentant sinner, that Turns from his evil ways; beholds the Sacrifice on the Cross, and beholds the Sacrifice of a broken Heart, and for the sweet savour of the one, accepts the other, and is at rest; his death for sin, procures our Pardon, and our death to sin sues it out; Christ suffers for sin, we turn from it; his satisfaction at once wipes out the guilt, and penalty, our Repentance by degrees, 
Tert. de anima. c. 1.  destroys sin itself; Haec est sapientia de scholâ caeli; This is the method of Heaven; this is that Wisdom which is from above; Thus it takes away the sins of the world.  
And now wisdom is complete; Justice is satisfied, and Mercy triumphs; God is glorified, man is saved, and the Angels rejoice; 
Tert de poenit. c. 8.  Heus tu peccator, bono animo sis, vides ubi de tuo reditu gaudeatur; saith Tert. Take comfort, sinner, thou seest what joy there is in heaven for thy return; what music there is in a Turn, which gins on earth, but reaches up, and fills the highest Heavens! A repentant sinner is as a glass, or rather Gods own renewed Image, on which God delights to look; for there he beholds his wisdom, his Justice, his mercy, and what wonders they have wrought. Behold the shepherd of our souls; see what lies upon his shoulders; you would think a poor Sheep that was lost; nay, but he leads sin and Death, and the Devil in Triumph; and thou mayst see the very brightness of his Glory, the fairest and most express Image of these Three his most glorious Attributes, which are not only visible, but speak unto us, to follow this heavenly Method, His wisdom instructs us, his justice calls upon us, and Mercy, Eloquent mercy bespeaks us: a whole Trinity of Attributes, are instant and urgent with us, To Turn à viis malis, from our evil ways; And this is the Authority, I may say, the Majesty of Repentance; for it hath these Three; God's Wisdom, and justice, and Mercy to seal and ratify it; to make it Authentic.  

The 2. part. Turn ye, Turn ye.  We come now to the dictum itself, and it being Gods, and it being Gods, we must well weigh and ponder it; and we shall find it comprehends the Duty of Repentance in its full latitude. For as sin is nothing else but aversio à Creatore, and conversio ad creaturam, and aversion, and Turning from God, and an inordinate conversion and application of the soul to the Creature; so by our Repentance we do refer pedem, start back, and alter our course, work and withdraw ourselves a viis malis, from evil ways, and Turn to the Lord, by cleaving to his Laws, which are the mind of the Lord; and having our feet enlarged, run the way of his Commandments. We see a straight line drawn out at length, is of all lines the weakest; and the further, and further you draw it, the weaker and weaker it is, nor can it be strengthened, but by being redoubled, and bowed, and brought back again towards its first point. 
Eccles. 7.20.  The Wise man will tell us, That God at first made man upright, that is simple, and single, and sincere; bound him, as it were to one point; but he sought out many Inventions, mingled himself, and Engendered with Divers extravagant Conceits, and so ran out, not in one, but many lines, now drawn out to that object, now to another, still running further, and further, sometimes on the flesh, and sometimes on the world; now on Idolatry, and anon on Oppression; and so at a sad Distance from him, in whom he should have dwelled, and rested as in his Centre: and therefore God seeing him gone so far, seeing him weak and feeble, wound, and Turned about by the Activity of the Devil, and sway of the Flesh, and not willing to lose him; ordained Repentance as a remedy, as the Instrument to bend and bow him back again, that he might recover, and gain strength, and subsistency in his former, and proper place; to draw him back from those Objects, in which he was lost, and so carry him on forward to the Rock, out of which he was hewed: whilst he is yet in viis malis, in his evil ways, all is out of Tune, and Order; for the Devil, who doth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, 
Chrysost. Hom. de penitent.  invert the order of things, placeth shame upon repentance, and boldness, and senlessness, upon sin; but Repentance is a perfect Methodist; upon our Turn, we see the danger we played with, and the horror of those Paths, in which we sported, we see in our flight, a banishment, in every sin a Hell, and in our Turn a Paradise.  
Divers words we have to express the true nature of Repentance, but none more usual, more full and proper than this of Turning; for it includes all the rest. It is more, than a bare knowledge of our sins, more than Grief; more than an acknowledgement, or confession: more than a desire of change; more than an endeavour; for if we do not Turn, a Termino, in Terminum, from one Term, or state to another; from every sin we now embrace, to its contrary; If we do not fly and loathe the one, and rest and delight in the other; our knowledge of sin, is but an accusation; our Grief is but a frail and vanishing displacency, and our Tears are our recreation; 
jugentibus lachrymae quietis & recreationis loco sunt. Mos. Maimmon. Doct. perplex. l. 3. c. 4 s.  our desires but as Thoughts, and our Endeavours, proffers; but if we Turn, and our turn be real, these Instruments, or Antecedents, These disposing and preparing Acts must needs be so also, true and real: we talk much of the knowledge and sense of our sin; when we cannot be ignorant of it; of grief, when we have no feeling, of confession, and acknowledgement, when the Heart is not broken, of a de●…re to be Good, when we resolve to be evil, of our endeavour to leave off our sins, when we seed, and nourish them, and even hire them to stay with us, 
— In udo est Maenas, et Attin.  our Repentance is languid, and faint, our knowledge without observation, our grief without compunction; our acknowledgement without trepidation; our desire without strength, and our endeavour without Activity: but they are all complete, and made perfect in our turn, and Conversion: If we turn from our sins, than we know them, and know them in their Deformity, and all those Circumstances, which put so much horror upon them; If we Turn, our head will be a Fountain of Tears; 
Lament. 1.16.  and the Eye will cast out water; our confession will be loud and hearty; Our desire eager, and impatient; and our Endeavours strong, and earnest and violent. This turn is as the hinge on which all the rest move freely and orderly; Optima poenitentia, nova vita, saith Luther, the best and truest Repentance, is a new life, a turn, carries all the rest along with it to the end, The end of our knowledge, of our grief, of our acknowledgement, the end of our desires and endeavours; For we know our sins, we bewail them, we acknowledge them, we desire, and endeavour to leave them; in a word; we turn that we may be saved.  

1. The Knowledge of our sins  And first, it includes the knowledge of our sins; for he that knows not his malady, will neither seek for our, nor admit it; 
Isid. Pelusiot. l. 1111. ep. 149.  he that knows not the danger of the place he stands in, will not turn his face another way; he that dwells in it, as in a Paradise, will look upon all other, that yield not the same delight, as upon Hell itself; he that knows not his ways are evil, will hardly go out of them; Malum notum, res est optima, saith Luther; 'Tis a good thing to know evil: for the knowledge of that, which is evil, can have no other end but this; To drive us from it, to that which is Good: when sin appears in its ugliness, and monstrosity, when the Law, and the wrath of God, and Death itself display their Terrors before our face; That face is more than brass or Adamant, that will not gather blackness, and Turn itself.  
But this Prescript; To know sin (one would think) should rather be tendered to the Heathen than Christians; 
Act 15 20. Quand● ho Factum non est? quando reprehensum? Quando non P●…missum, Cic. ●…o M. Caeli●. Rom. 1.31.  To them some sins were unknown, as Revenge, Ambition, Fornication, and therefore they are enjoined to abstain from it; and yet even those which the light of Nature had discovered to them, they did commit, though they knew, That they who did commit them were worthy of death: But to Christians, it may seem unnecessary, for they live in the Church, which is spoliarium vitiorum, 
Ethic. 3. c. 22.  a place where sin is every day reviled, and disgraced, where it is Anatomised, and the bowels, and entrails, every sinew and vein of it shown. I should say, our Church were reform indeed, if we did commit no sins, but those we do not know: many things we do, saith the Philosopher, we may say, most sins we commit, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, not which reason persuades, but which the flesh betrays us to; not to which our knowledge leads us, but our sensuality. Stat contraratio, Reason, when we sin, is not so foiled, or beaten down, but it stands up against us, and opposeth us to our face; It tells the Miser that Covetousness is Idolatry, The wanton, that Lust is that fire which will consume him; the Revenger, that he digs his own Grave with his sword; it is indeed commonly said, That reason is corrupt, but the Truth is, that which we call corrupt reason, is our passion or sensuality; for that cannot be reason, which directs us to that which is unreasonable; The sense doth too oft get the better, but can never silence, or corrupt it so, as to call evil good, or good evil; For that is the language of the Beast, of the sensual part; and for aught I see, we may as well assign and Entitle our Good Actions to our sensitive part, when we keep; as our bad, to our Reason, when we break the Law. Reason never yields, and our knowledge is still the same; In Lust, it commends Chastity, in Anger Meekness, in Pride Humility; when we surfeit on those delights, which sin brings with it, our Reason plainly tell us, That they are deadly Poison.  
We need not then, be over-solicitous to secure this Ingredient (the knowledge of our sins) to bring it into the Recipe of our Repentance; for there be but few which we know not, fewer which we may not know, if we will, if we will but take the pains to put it to the question, either before the Act, what we are about to do; or after, what it is, we have done; for it is a Law, a plain Law, we are to try it by, not a dark riddle; and if we do mistake, it is easy to determine what it was that did work, and frame, and polish the cheat: Not a sin, which comes with open mouth to devour us, and swallow up our Peace, but is of that Bulk and corpulency, that we cannot but see it, and though we may peradventure here Turn away our eye, yet we cannot put it out. Our knowledge will not forsake us, and our Conscience follows our knowledge, which may sleep, but cannot die in us; which is an evil spirit, that all the music in the world will not ease us of; and though we set up bulwarks against it, compass ourselves about with variety of Delights, and fence ourselves in with Honour and Power, which we make the weapons of unrighteousness; yet it will at one time or other make its sallies, and Eruptions, and Disturb our Peace. God hath placed it in us, as he fixed the Vrim and Thummim on the breastplate of judgement, 
Exod. 28.30.  by which he might give answer unto us, what we are to do; what not to do; what we have done well, and what amiss; as he did to the Priest, who by viewing his Breastplate, saw whether the people might go up, 
Esr. 2.63. Nehem. 7.15. Psal. 19.12. Levit. 4.2. Heb. 9.7.  or not go up; but when we have once defiled our Conscience, we care not much for looking towards it, and we lose the use of it, in our slavery under sin, as they lost the use of their Vrim and Thummim at the Captivity of Babylon.  
But then, who knoweth how oft he offends? who knows his unadvised errors? his inconsiderate sins? 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, his ignorances', those which he entertains, as the Septuagint renders it, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, unwillingly, which steal in upon him at unawares, even whilst he is busy in subduing others; as we see one part of an Army may be surprised, and fly, whilst the other Conquers; For the best of men, through the frailty and mutability of their Nature, may receive many such blows, and feel them not; and it fares with us in the course of our life, as it doth with Travellers in their way; many Objects, many sins we pass by, and not so much as cast an eye that way; which yet in themselves are visible enough, and may be seen, as well, as those we look upon with some Care, and sometimes with astonishment: and yet even these secret and retired sins are known and condemned both by our Fear and Hatred, we know such there be, though we know not what they are, nor can call them by their Name; and our begging Pardon for them, is our defiance of them, and declares not only our sorrow for them, but our Anger against them; breathes Revenge, though we know them not; and shows how roughly and disdainfully we should handle them, if we did.  

2. Grief for sin.  2. The Knowledge then of our sins is a thing presupposed in our Turn, and so in the next place is the grief and sorrow which ordinarily doth arise from such a Convincement: for some displacency it will work, though not of strength enough to move us, or drive us from that, which we make a Paradise, but is our Tophet; and Turn us to embrace that condition, and estate, which at first presents the horror of a Prison, but is a Sanctuary.  
Now Grief is not sub praecepto, 
Quint. decls. 185.  under any command, nor indeed can it be; medicamenta mandata non accipiunt: you may prescribe Physic, but you give it not, with a command; nor can you say, thus it shall work: you may exhort me to look about me, and consider my estate, but you cannot bid me grieve; when we wish men to Fear, or Hope, to be sad, or merry; we speak improperly, and ineffectually, unless our meaning be, they should enter into those considerations which may strike a Fear, or raise a Hope, work a sorrow, or beget a joy; the Apostle preacheth to the Jews. Act. 2. puts his goad to their sides, 
Acts 2.37,38.  and the Text says, They were pricked in their Hearts, and it follows, Then Peter said unto them, Repent; his words were sharp, and did prick them at the heart, but they were no commands; the command is Repent and be baptised; what a Sea of words may flow, and yet not a drop fall from our eye? what fearful Prognostics may we see? what mournful Threnodies may we hear, and yet not be cast down, or change the countenance? nay, what penance may we undergo, and yet not Grieve? For Grief follows the Apprehension, and knowledge the Object, and riseth and falleth with it, varies, as that varies: if our apprehension be clear, our sorrow will be great; if that be pure, this will be sincere, if it be inward, this will be Deep, but if it be superficial, this will be but in the Face; if it be flitting, and unsettled, this will vanish at the sight of the next object, which presents itself with less distaste; vanish like the lightning, which is seen, and gone. 
Psal 38.4.  Sin is a heavy burden (saith David) it is so; when 'tis felt, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, hard to be borne; Moles, saith Austin; of a great bulk, and weight, and it is not a sigh, or a groan, a forced displacency, it is not such weak, faint Heaves of the Sonle, that can remove such a Mountain: we see some, who mourn like a Dove, and chatter like a Crane, when the hand of God toucheth them for their sin, who speak mournfully, look mournfully, go mournfully all the day long; who are cast down (you would think indeed) to the lowest pit, and 'tis easy to mistake a Pharisee, for a Poenitentiary; we read of some who did afflict, and Penance themselves with so much severity, That they fell in morbum poenitentialem, as Rhenanus observes upon Tertull. into a strange distemper, which they called the poenitentiary Disease, because it was contracted in the days of Penance; but all this doth not make up the full face of Repentance, nor complete our Turn. For we may hang down our head like a Bulrush; we may fast, till we have more need of a Physician, than a Divine (and yet too much need of both) we may even seem to be afraid of ourselves, to be weary of ourselves, to run out of ourselves, and yet not Turn; For these may be rather apparitions, than motions; Fasting Lamentation, and that displacency, which sin carries naturally along with it, are glorious expressions, and probable symptoms of a wounded Spirit, but yet many times, they are nothing else but the Types, and shadows of Repentance; many times signa non signantia, signs indeed, but such as signify nothing. Qui peccata deplorat, ploranda minimè committat, saith Gregoory, he truly bewails his sin, who doth no longer practise what he will be forced to bewail; he gives a perfect account of his debts, who is resolved never to add to the Bills, he Truly Turns, who will never look back, Haec poenitentiae vox est lachrymis orare, saith Hilar. Tears and Complaints are the voice and language of Repentance, 
Hil. in Ps. 11 S.  and if you see a Turn, you see a Change also in the Countenance; but many Times, Vox est, & praetereà nihil; It is the voice of REPENTANCE, and nothing else.  
For sorrow, and Dejection of mind have not always the same beginnings, nor do our Tears constantly flow from the same Spring and Fountain; Omnis Dolor Fundatur in amore; saith the Schools, all Grief is grounded on Love, for as my Joy is to have, so my Grief is, to want what I love; and ours may have no better principle, than the love of ourselves, and then it comes, à Fumo peccati, from the troublesome smoke which fin makes, or rather from the very Gall of Bitterness; a Grief begot betwixt Conscience and Lust, betwixt the Deformity of sin, and the pleasure of sin, betwixt the apprehension of a real evil, and the flattery of a seeming good; when I am troubled, not that I have sinned, but that it is not lawful to sin, much disquieted within me, that that sin, which I am unwilling to fly from, is a Serpent, that will sting me to death; That there is Gravel in the Bread of deceit; That, that unlawful pleasure, which is to me as sweet as Honey, should at last by't like a Cockatrice; That the ways, in which I walk with delight, should lead unto Death; That, that sin, which I am unwilling to fling off, hath such a Troop of Sergeants, and Executioners at her heels; and so it comes à Fumo Gehennae, from the smoke of the bottomless Pitt, from fear of punishment, which is fare from a Turn, but may prepare, mature, and ripen us for Repentance. But than it may come from the Fear of God, wrought in us, by the apprehension of his Justice and Mercy, and Dominion, and Power to Judge both the quick & the dead; and this Grief is next to a Turn, the next and immediate cause of our Conversion, when out of the admiration of his Innocence, Majesty and Goodness, I am willing to offend myself for offending him; and offer up to him some part of my substance, the Anguish of my soul, the Groans of Contrition, and my tears, 
Anastas. Bib. pairum.  which are ex ipsa nostrâ essentia, sicut sanguis martyrum; from our being and essence, and are offered up, as the blood of Martyrs.  

Confession of sin.  3. And this Grief will (in the third place) open our mouths, and force us to a Confession and acknowledgement of our sins) I mean a sad and serious Acknowledgement, which will draw them out, 
Bas. in Ps. 37.  and not suffer them to be pressed down, and settle like foul and putrified matter, in the bottom of the soul, as Basil expresseth it; For the least grief is vocal, the least displacencie will open our mouths; yea, where-there is little sense, or none, we are ready to complain; and because St. Paul's Humility brought him so low, look for an Absolution, if we can say (what we may truly say, but not with St. Paul's Spirit) That we are the chiefest of sinners. For nothing more easy, then to libel ourselves, where the Bill takes in the whole world; and the Best of Saints, as well as the worst of sinners: How willing are we to confess with David, That we are conceived in sin, and borne in Iniquity? how ready to call ourselves the Children of wrath, and workers of all unrighteousness? what delight do we take to miscall our virtues? to find Infidelity in our Faith; wavering in our Hope; Pride in our Humility; Ignorance in our Knowledge, coldness in our Devotion, and some degrees of Hostility in our very love of God? what can the Devil, our great Adversary and Accuser say more of us, than we are well pleased to say of ourselves? But this Acknowledgement is but the product of a lazy knowledge, and a faint, and momentary disgust, and it comes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, as the Stoics speaks, not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, 
Epict. Art. c. ● c. 15.1.  it is but the calves of our lips, not the Sacrifice of our Hearts; we breathe it forth with noise, and words enough; we make our sins Innumerable, more than the hairs of our head, or the Sands of the Seashore, but bring us to a particular account, and we find nothing but cyphers; some sins of daily Incursion, some of sudden subreption, some minute, scarce visible sins, but not the Figure of any sin, which we think will make up a Number: he that will confess himself the chief of Sinners, upon the most gentle remembrance, upon the meekest reprehension, will be ready to charge you, as a Greater; or peradventure, Take you by the Throat.  
But this is not that Confession, which ushers in Repentance, or forwards and promotes our Turn; it is rather an Ingredient to make up the Cup of stupefaction, which we take down with Delight, and then fall asleep, and dream of safety; even when we are on the Brink, and ready to fall into the pit. David, 'tis true, 
Aug. Hom. 4.1. In his Tribus S●llabis Flamm● sacrificii ecram ●emino ascenctit in coelum.  said no more but peccavi, and his sin was Taken away, Tantum valent, Tres syllabae, saith St. Aust. such force there was in Three Syllables; and can there be virtue in Syllables? no man can imagine there can; but David's Heart, saith he, was now a sacrificing, and on these three Syllables, the name of that sacrifice was carried up before the Lord, into the highest heavens. If our knowledge of our sins be clean, and affective; if our Grief be real, than our confession and acknowledgement will be hearty, our Bowels will sound as a Harp, our Inwards will boil, and not rest, our heart will tremble, and be Turned within us, our Sighs and our Groans will send forth our words, as sad messengers of that Desolation, 
Is. 16.11. Job. 30.27.  which is within; Our heart will cry out as well as our Tongue; My heart, my heart is prepared, saith David, which is then the best, and sweetest Instrument, when 'tis broken.  

4. Desire.  4. And these three in the fourth place, will raise up in us a desire, secondly an endeavour to shake off these fears, and this weight which doth so compass about, and enfold us: 
Heb. 12.1.  for who is there, that doth see his sins, and weep over them, execrate them by his Tears, 
Fletus humanarum necessiatum verecunda execratio. Sen. C●nt. 8.6.  and condemn them by his Confession, that shall see sin clothed with Death; The Law, a kill letter; the Judge frowning; Death ready with his Dart, to strike him through, who would be such a Beast, as to come so near; and Hell opening her mouth to take him in; who will not long, and groan, and travail in pain, and cry out to be delivered from this body of Death? Quissub tali conscientiâ & c? who would live under such a Conscience, which is ever galling and gnawing him? what Prisoner, that feels his Fetters, would not shakethem off? certainly, he that can stand out against all these Terrors and Amazements; he that can thwart and resist his knowledge, wipe off his Tears, and fling off his sorrow, and baffle and confute his own acknowledgement; he that can slight his own conscience, mock his Distaste, Trifle with the wrath of God, which he sees near him, and play at the very gates of Hell; he that is in profundis, in this Great Deep, and will not cry out, he that knows what he is, and will be what he is, knows he is miserable, and desires not a change, is near to the condition of the Damned spirits, who howl for the want of that light which they have lost, and detest, and Blaspheme that most, which they cannot have; who because they can never be Happy, can never desire it. But to this condition we cannot be brought, till we are brought under the same punishment, which nevertheless is represented to us in this life, in the sad thoughts of our Heart; in the Horror of sin; and in a Troubled Conscience, that so we may avoid it: The Type we see now, and to this end, that we may never see the Thing itself; and the sight of this (if we remove not our eye, at the call and enticement of the next approaching vanity, which may please at first, but in the end will place before us, as foul an Object, as that, which we now look upon) will work in us a Desire, to have that removed which is now as a Thorn in our eyes; a desire to have God's Hand taken off from us, and that those sins too may be taken away, which made his Hand so heavy; a desire to be freed from the guilt, and a desire to be freed from the Dominion of sin; a Desire that reacheth at Liberty, and at Heaven itself: Eruditi vivere, est cogitare, saith Tully; 
Tusc. q. l. 5.  Meditation is the life of a Scholar, for if the mind leave off to move, and work, and be in agitation; the man indeed may live, but the Philosopher is dead; and vita Christiani sanctum Desiderium, saith Hierom the life of a Christian is nothing else, but a holy desire, drawn out and spent in Prayers, Deprecations, Wishes, Obtestations, in Pant and long, held up and continued by the heat, and vigour, and the endless unsatisfyednesse of desire, which (if it slack or fail, or end in an indifferency, or Lukewarmness) leaves nothing behind it, but a lump, a mass of Corruption; for with it, the life is gone, the Christian is departed.  

5. Endeavour.  5. But in the last place; This is not enough, nor will it draw us near enough unto a Turn; there is required, as a true witness of this our convincement, and sorrow, of the Heartiness of our confession, and the Truth of our desire; a serious endavour, an eager contention with ourselves, an assiduous violence against those sins, which have brought us so low, to the dust of Death, and the House of the Grave: and endeavour to order our steps; to walk contrary to ourselves; to make a Covenant with our eye; to purge our ear, to cut off our hand; and to keep our Feet; to forbear every Act which carries with it, but the appearance of evil, to cut off every occasion, which may prompt us to it, an Endeavour to work in the Vineyard, to exercise ourselves in the works of Piety; to love the fair opportunities of doing good, and lay hold on them, to be ambitious, and Inquisitive after all those Helps, and advantages, which may promote this endeavour, and bring it with more ease and certainty unto the end: And this is as the heaving and struggling of a man under a Burden; as the striving in a Snare, as the Throws of a Woman in Travail, who longs to be delivered; this is as our knocking at the Gates of Heaven, as our flight from the wrath to come: Thus do we strive and fight with all those defects, which either nature began, or custom hath confirmed in us; thus do we by degrees work that happy change; that we are not the same, but other men; 
Val. Max. l. 8. c. 7.  as the Historian speaks of Demosthenes (whose studiousness and Industry overcame the malignity of Nature, and unloosed his tongue) alterum Demosthenem mater, alterum industria enixa est, The mother brought forth one Demosthenes, and Industry another; so by this our serious and unfeigned Endeavour, eluctamur per obstantia, we force ourselves out of those obstacles and encumberances, which detained us so long in evil ways; we make our way through the Clouds, and darkness of this world, and are compassed about with rays of light. Nature made us men; evil Custom made us like the Beasts, that perish, and grace and Repentance make us Christians, and consecrates us to Eternity.  

The Turn itself, Or, True Repentance.  All these are in our Turn, in our Repentance; but all these do not complete and perfect it; For I am not Turned from my evil ways, till I walk in good; I have not shaken off one Habit, till I have gained the contrary; I am not truly Turned from one point, till I have recovered the other; have not forsaken Babylon, till I dwell in Jerusalem; for, Turn ye from your evil Ways, in the holy language is, Turn unto me with all your heart; work out one Habit, 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Arist. 2. Ethic. c. 1.  with another: let your Actions now, control and demolish those, which you built up so fast; that which set them up, will pull them down, perseverance, and assiduity in Action: The liberal Hand casts away our Alms, and our Covetousness together: The often putting our knife to our throat, destroys our Intemperance; The often disciplining our Flesh, crucifies our Lusts; our acts of mercy, proscribe Cruelty; our making ourselves Eunuches for the Kingdom of Heaven, stones the Adulterer; our walking in the light, is our Turn from Darkness; our going about, and doing good, is our voluntary Exile, and Flight out of the World, and the Pollutions thereof, Then we are Spiritual, when we walk after the Spirit; and when we thus walk, we are Turned.  
I know Repentance, in the Writings of Divines, is drawn out, and commended to us under more notions, and considerations, than one; It is taken for those preparatory Acts, which fit and qualify us for the Kingdom and Gospel of Christ; Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand; 
Matth. 3.2.  it is taken for that change, in which we are sorry for our sin, and desire and purpose to leave it, which serves to usher in Faith and Obedience; but I take it in its most general and largest acception, for the leaving one state and Condition, and a constant cleaving to the contrary; for the getting ourselves of every evil Habit, and investing ourselves with those which are good; or, to speak with our Prophet; for Turning away from wickedness, 
Ezek. 18.27.  and doing that which is Lawful and right; for casting away all our Transgressions, and making us new Hearts, and new Spirits; I am sure this one Syllable Turn, will take in and comprehend it all: for what is all our preparation; if when we come near to Christ, we stand back? what are the beginnings of obedience, if we revolt? what is the bend, or Turn of our Initiation, if we Turn aside like a deceitful Bow? what's out sorrow, if it do but bow the head; and leave the Heart as wanton as before? what's our desire, if it have but the strength of a Thought? what's our endeavour, if it strike and contract itself, and is lost at the sight of the next Temptation? But our Turn supposeth all These; and takes in all the Dimensions of Repentance, the Body, and full Compass of it, and though it be but a word, yet is as expressive and significant, as any other in Scripture, and contains them all.  
It includes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, our Regeneration; for if we Turn, we Turn à termino ad terminum, 
Titus. 3.5.  from one Term to another; and as in Generation, and our natural Birth, there is Non ens Tale, and ens Tale, a progress, or mutation from that which it was not, to that, which it now is, so is it in our Turn; It was Nehushtan, a rude piece of Brass, it is now a polished Statue of Piety; It was a Child of Wrath; 
Luk. 15.32. Rom. 12.2. Gal. 3.27.  it is now a Child of Blessings; It was dead, and is alive; and it takes in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, our Renovation or Renewing; Behold old Things are passed away, all things are become New; The sinner that Turns, leaves his strange Apparel, 
Gal. 3.27.  his Filthy Rags behind him, and upon his Turn comes forth Glorious in the Robes of Righteousness? and it comprehends our Cleansing, 
Tit. 2.14.  or purification; He that turns from his evil ways, hath purged out his old Leaven, and is made a new Lump. 
1 Cor 5,7.  Repentance is as Physic to the Soul, but not to be given ad pondus et mensuram, so many grains, and so many Dams; by measure, and proportion; non est periculum, ne sit nimium, quod ei maximum debet, we may take too little, there is no fear at all, that we should take too much of it; Repentance for our sins is the business of our whole life; for indeed what is Perseverance, but an entire, and continued Repentance? a constant turning away from our evil ways? when sin hath corrupted our faculties, we purge it out by Repentance; and when 'tis dead we bury it by Repentance, and it is quite lost and forgotten in the ways of Righteousness, and being Turned, we never look back, never cast a Thought after it, but with sorrow, and Anger, and detestation; and when it appears before us, it appears in a fouler shape, in greater horror, than we beheld it in, when we first fell upon our Knees for Pardon; For the more Confirmed we are in Goodness, the more abhorrent we are of Evil; and defy it most, when we stand at the greatest Distance; we never loathe our Disease more, than when we are purged and Healthy. There is another word; 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, which hath a good sense put upon it, which yet the word doth not naturally yield, and rather signifies a Trouble of mind, than a Turn, 
Matth. 21.32.  and it is spoken of Judas himself, 
Matth. 27.3.  〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he repent himself; and what a Repentance was that, which he should have repent of? what a Turn was that, that choked him? Had his Turn been right, he might have died a Martyr, who died a Traitor; and a Murderer of his Master, and himself; For this deep, Melancholy, 
L. 27. c. 2. De Aconito; Ea est natura, ut hominem occidat, nisi invenerit quod in homine perimat.  and Trouble of mind, is like that poisonous Plant which Pliny speaks of, which if it do not take away the Disease, kills the man: Judas indeed was called the son of perdition; but it was because he destroyed himself.  
But there is another word, which is more proper, and more used, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a Turn, and change of the Mind? what? of the understanding. There may be such a change, and yet no Turn, no Repentance; for how many have been brought to a knowledge of their sins, who could never be induced to leave them? nay, but of the will! for this sense 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, 
1 Cor. 2.6.  the primitive, and those compounds of it, do bear, who hath known 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the Mind, the Will, the Decree of the Lord? and God delivered up those that retained him not, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, 
Rom. 1.28.  to a reprobate mind, id est, a will to do those things which are not convenient; 
1 Tit. 15.16.  not to knowledge of evil, but to the practice of it; and to those who are defiled, saith Saint Paul; 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, even their mind, that is their will is corrupted, as appears by their Evil Works in the next verse: and so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, which doth not signify a Good understanding, or a good Mind or opinion; (These will beget but a Compliment, but good words, Depart in peace, 
Jam. 2.16.  be ye warmed and filled) not a good wish, but a good Will, which gives those things, which are needful for the body; in like manner, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, which signifies not only prescience, and foresight, but Government, Care, and direction, which are the free Actions of the Will: we might instance in more; but (to our present purpose) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, primarily, and properly signifies an Act of the Will, not as it necessarily follows the Act of the understanding, but as it ought to follow by the command of God, although we see, it doth not always follow: Despisest thou the riches of his Goodness, 
Rom. 2.4.  not knowing, that is, not willing to know, that it leadeth thee 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, to repentance? and he speaks to those, who did judge such things, yet did the same, vers. 3. and did know the will of God. verse. 18. So; Repent, and do the first Works, Revel. 2.5. and in most places it is thus taken; you may call it a Transmentation, but it is a subduing and Turning of the Will and Affections, that the whole man may be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, 
Nazianz:  not the same, but another man; before hurried away by his passion; but now walking by the right rule, before spreading, and diffusing himself on variety of unlawful Objects, now recollected into himself, and looking forward on God alone.  
Why will ye die?  
The main Turn, is of the will; For we see the face of it, here in the Text, is set upon Death itself; and therefore to be Turned away; 'Tis not our Natural Concupiscence; 'Tis not the dulness of our understandings; 'Tis not the violence of our Passion; 'Tis not our weakness, that we Dye, it is our Will destroys us; If the will be Turned, the Understanding is also changed, not to know, what it cannot be ignorant of; but to be subservient, and Instrumental to the Will, in drawing it nearer and nearer to that end, for which it hath determined its Act; in finding, and squaring out materials, to the building up of this Temple of the Holy Ghost. For Heaven is Heaven, and Hell is Hell; Virtue is Virtue, and vice is vice to the Understanding; nor can it appear otherwise; for in these we cannot be deceived: what Reason can that be, which teacheth us to Act against Reason? Esau knew well enough, that it was a sin to kill his Brother; but his Reason taught him to expect his Father's Funeral. Ahab knew it was a crying sin to take Naboths Vineyard from him by violence; and therefore he would have paid down money for it; and his painted Queen knew as much; but that the best way to take possession of his Vineyard, was to dispossess him of his life; and the surest way to that, was to make him a Blasphemer, that was the effect and product of Reason, and Discourse; which is the best servant when the Will is Right; and the worst when she is irregular. Reason may seek out many Inventions for Evil; and she may discover many helps and Advantages to promote that which is good; she may draw out the method which leads to both; find out opportunities; bring in Encouragements and Provocations to both; but Reason never yet called Evil good, or Good evil, 
2 Thess. 3.2.  for than it is not Reason; the Apostle hath joined both together, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, if they be wicked, they are unreasonable, and absurd, for they do that which Reason abhors, and condemns at the first presentment. So that the will you see, is origo boni, & mali, is the prinipall cause of Good and Evil; That I will not understand, when I cannot but understand, is from the will; that the Judge is blind, (when he sees well enough what is just, and what is unjust) is not from the Bribe, but the Will; That my fear shakes me, my Anger inflames me, my Love Transports me, my sorrow casts me down, and my joy makes me mad; That my Reason is Instrumental, and Active against itself; That my Passions rage, and are unruly, is from my will, which being fastened to its Object, draws all the Powers of the Soul after it.  
And therefore, if the will Turn, all these will Turn with it, Turn to their proper offices and Functions. The Understanding will be all Light, and the Affections will be all Peace, (for the proper Act of every Faculty, is its Peace) when the Understanding contemplates that Truth which perfects it; it rests upon it, and dwells there, as upon a holy Hill: But when it busies itself in those, which hold no proportion with it (as the gathering of Wealth; the raising of a Name; the finding out pleasures) when it is a Steward, and Purveyor for the Sense, it is restless, and unquiet: now finds out this way; anon another, and by & by disapproves them both, and contradicts itself in every motion. When our Affections are levelled on that, 
Affectiones ordinatae sunt virtutes. Gers.  for which they were given us; they lose their name, and we call them Virtues, but when they fly out after every impertinent Object, they fly out in infinitum, and are never at their end and rest; place Love on the things of this World, and what a troublesome, Tumultuous Passion is it, tiring itself with its own Hast, and wasting and consuming itself, with its own Heat: but place it on Piety, and there it is, as in its Heaven; and the more it spends of itself, the more it is increased. Let your Anger kindle against an Enemy; and it is a Fury, that Torments two at once; but derive it, and lay it on your sin, and there it sits as a Magistrate on a Tribunal, to work your Peace. That sorrow, which we cast away upon Temporal losses, is a Disease, which must be cured by Time, but our sorrow for sin, is a Cure itself, is a second Baptism; washes away the Causes of that Evil, and dies with it, and rises up again in Comfort. That joy which is raised out of Riches, and Pleasure, is raised as a Meteor out of dung, and is whiffed up and down, by every wind and Breath; but if it follow the Health and Harmony, the good Constitution of the Soul; it is as clear, and pure, and constant, as the Heavens themselves, and may be carried about in a lasting and continued Gyre, but is still the same. And this Turn the Affections will have, if the will Turn; then they Turn their face another way, from Bethaven to Bethel; from Ebal, to Garazin; from the Mount of Curses, to the Holy Hill.  
We cannot Think, that in this our Turn, the Powers of the Soul are pulled to pieces, that our Affections are plucked up by the roots; That our Love is Annihilated, our Anger destroyed, our Zeal quenched; By my Turn, I am not dissolved, but better built, I have new Affections, and yet the same; now dead, and impotent to evil, but vigorous and active in Good; my steps are altered, not my Feet, my Affections cut off; the Character is changed, but not the Book. That sorrow, which covered my face for the loss of my Friend, is now a Thicker and Darker cloud about it, because of my sin. That hope, which stooped so low, as the Earth, as the mortal and fading vanities of the world, is now on the wing, raising itself as high as Heaven: That Zeal, which drove Saint Paul upon the very pricks, to persecute the Church, did after lead him to the block, to be crowned with Martyrdom.  
If the Will be Turned, that is captivated, and subdued to that Will of God, which is the Rule of all our Actions, it becomes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a Shop, and Workhouse of Virtuous, and Religious Actions; and the Understanding and Affections, are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, fellow-workers with it, ready to forward and Complete the Turn; Saint Bernard tells us, that nothing doth Burn in Hell but our will; and 'tis as true, Nothing doth reign in Heaven but the will: In it are the wells of Salvation, and in it are the waters of Bitterness; in it is Tophet, and in it is Paradise: 
Aug. Hom. 8.  Totum habet, qui bonam habet voluntatem, saith Austin, he hath run through all the Hardship, and Exercises of Repentance, who hath (not changed his opinion, or improved his knowledge) but altered his will; for the Turn of the will supposeth the rest, but the rest do not necessitate this; when this is wrought, all is done: that is, The Soul is enlightened, purged, renewed; hath its Regeneration, and new Creation; in a word; when the Will is turned, the soul is saved; The Old man is a New Creature; and this New Creature changes no more, but holds up the Turn, till he be Turned to Dust, and raised again, and then made like unto the Angels.    

THE SIXTH SERMON.  

PART II.  EZEKIEL 33.11. 
Turn ye, Turn ye from your evil ways etc.  
This Turn, is a Turn of the whole man, of his understanding, his affections; nay, of his senses, of the eye, and the ear, from vanity of the taste, from forbidden fruit of the touch, from that which it must not handle; a Turn of the outward man, as well as the inward, of his deportment, and behaviour, of every motion, and of every gesture; but the principal and main Turn is of the will, from that which is not worth a look or a thought, to that which is desirable in itself, and doth alone perfect, and in a manner glorify it in its approximation, and union with the will of God: we may say of it, as Tertullian doth of the soul itself, it is Totum hominis, 
Tert de Testim. animae. c. 1.  & toto homine majus quid, it is as the whole man, and something greater than the whole; like that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Saint James, the rudder and helm, by which all the other powers and faculties of the soul, 
c. 3.4.  and every member of the body are turned about, when they are driven as it were, of fierce winds; and binds them to those objects, for which they were especially made, and in which they may rest, as in a Haven.  
This is the true turn: but this itself hath been turned; the convertimini turned about by the wind of several fancies. Take origen's conceit; That all things shall return back into God as all things flowed from from him at the first; and then this Turn may seem to reach home to the very devils themselves. Take the Novatian strictness and severity, and it will not reach so far as men. Some we see stand much upon an outward visible Turn; upon the Ceremony and pomp of Repentance, and so have turned, and changed that name, and called it penance; others have brought in Cervam pro Iphigeniâ, a beast instead of a Virgin, the turn of an erring soul, that will err more, and more; or rather Exanguem penitentiam an invisible turn; or a turn in a picture; a forced sigh, a seeming displacency, Open or private confession, a very thought for Repentance. Some again, extend Repentance ad praeterita, and make it reflect only upon sins past, and so leave us in the very point of turning, turning from our evil ways, but not unto God, which is an act, they say, not of Repentance, but of spiritual wisdom; and so do tuditare negotia in Lucretius his phrase; beat out work, where there is none, and make a business, and noise where they need not; For what turn is that, which leaves us where we were? what repentance is that, for which we are not the better? or can we say, the evil man is changed, that is not good; that the angry man is changed, who is not meek? or the proud changed, who will not make themselves equal to them of the lowest degree? But thus the convertimini hath been turned about, from the streets to the Temple; from the Temple to the closet, from confession to a sigh; from the eye and tongue, to the heart, from the heart to the eye and tongue, and almost lost in the dispute. Repentance is brought forth, and presented now in this dress, now in that, (you might think she were turned wanton) but few entertain her in her own shape, in that Matron-like deportment, and severity, which always attends her, or if they admit her with a whip, 'tis such a one, as ploweth the back, but not toucheth the soul; the Doctrine of Repentance hath filled many Volumes, but the true practice of it may be comprised in a manual.  
And yet to settle the turn upon its proper hinge, that it may turn to the rights (as we say) in this great disagreement, every party speaks some truth; and for aught appears, may subscribe one to the other; and the turn is safe amongst them; for that none deny. Must I confess my sins? the Protestant affirms it! must I renounce my sins? the Papist dares not deny it; must I leave my sins; it is true, but it is not enough to make up the turn; for I may forbear the act, and yet cleave to the sin; I may be an Adulterer, and not touch a woman, and remain in the stews, when I am gone out of it. Must I beat down my body, and fast and pray, and for a time deny myself that which is lawful, and which the Giver of every good gift hath put into my hands? This is a penance which the Protestant will allow; and must I crucify my lust, and unruly affections? this sounds as loud, and is as much cried up at Rome as at Geneva. Public Repentance hath the advantage of Antiquity, whose practice some have thought the best Commentary on the Scripture; and the inward Turn is so necessary, that even they commend, and require it, who are settled on their lees. Contrition is necessary; and new life is necessary; to Turn from our evil ways, is necessary, and to turn to God is necessary: to abstain from evil is necessary, and to do good is necessary: so that out of these several characters, we may draw out the true definition of Repentance, as the Ancients are said, out of the several writings of the Heathen Philosophers, to have made up a complete body of the practic part of Christian Philosophy. You will say, they make Repentance a Sacrament (an error indeed, but not so bold, and pressing on the foundation, as many other errors of that Church are) yet though it be not a Sacrament, let ours be visible; let our confession be so hearty, that our absolution may be sealed in Heaven; 
2 Cor. 7.11.  But than they bring in satisfaction, 'tis true, they do, and in another dress, then that, in which the Ancients shown her; even satisfaction of condignity. There is no reason we should think so, yet let our indignation, our revenge, our zeal be such, as if we meant not only to Deprecate; but if it were possible, to satisfy: each party may make this use of one another's conceptions, even of error itself, to the advantage of the truth; and make that which seems an argument against him, a remedy, and so fill up the Convertimini our Turn in every part: God forbidden, we should be of the same opinion in the one, and 'twill be our greatest happiness to join together, and yet, in a holy emulation contend, who shall make the fairest progress in the other. If others, 
Plut. in vitâ Arist.  as it was observed of those Governors, woe ruled in Athens before Aristides, bring in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 much ridioulous unnecessary stuff; (as they did build Galleries, erect statues, hang up pictures, and the like) let us with good Aristides, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 bend the whole course of our policy to the raising up of virtue, & righteousness; let us bring in such a Repentance, make such a turn, which may bring us forward towards happiness, by our bringing forth fruits worthy Amendment of life. Then shall the ceremonious part advance the thing itself; and the substance cast a lustre back again upon the ceremony: then shall our verbal confession be made visible, and our turn will show, that it was more than a voice. Then when we thus end our fast, it will be plain, that God was in capite Jejunij, that his grace began it; then shall our sorrow for our sin be made perfect in our love of goodness, then shall our righteousness break forth like the light, and shine upon our tears; and our tears cast a glorious radiation, and reflect back again upon our righteousness; Then shall my piety make my sorrow Music, and my grief shall water my piety, and make it more abundant; my head shall be a fountain of tears, and my heart a wellspring of life, and this will make up the Convertimini, even accomplish and consummate my Repentance.  
Thus much in general, of the turn, and the true Nature of Repentance  

The Ingemina non Turn ye, Turn ye,  We shall yet press it further, and make it more visible in its properties, which we may easily discover in this lively and forcible heat of Iteration, and ingemination of the word; Turn ye, Turn ye; and indeed, so remarkable it is, that we cannot let it pass, but must stay our meditations, and fix them here; even fix them upon this vehement earnestness, and urgency, which is the very life and soul of Exhortation.  
For some great matter it must needs be; some great danger at hand, that makes God thus call, and call again; that makes him thus reiterate his words; turn ye, turn ye, we may say, his Wisdom, his Justice, his mercy constrained him; and now he speaks, as it were in passion. From this it is; that Omnipotency itself may seem to bow, and descend, to wishes, to Obtestations, to Exhortations, to entreaties, which are far below the Majesty of God; and to call upon us, with more earnestness of afflection, with more heat, and reality, then vile Dust and Ashes, than man, impotent, perishing man, man that is nothing, doth upon him. What is not one turn enough? must my turn answer his call? and must I turn and turn again? Nothing is enough to him, because he is Just, and Wise, and Merciful, and every turn is not enough for us; we cannot turn far enough from sin, nor near enough to him; 
John 17.21  we are never near enough, till we are one in him, by our obedience. The Heathens, we know, fancied to themselves not only Deam Ageroniam a divine power to stir them up to action, but stimulam another power to prick them forward, and make them more active in that they took in hand, (for they could make whatsoever they saw, or thought of, whatsoever they feared, or desired, a God; and finding such a power, place it where they pleased) which powers severed by them, are truly united, and one in him, who is truly one, and alone hath power. He is not only Hortus to shake off our sloth by exhortation; but Ageronius to incite us to action, and to set us a work; to goad us and drive us forward; ward; Turn ye, Turn ye, this Ingemination is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, his goad, and when we delay, or do but Turn 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, as Nazianz speaks, when our Turn is a half, imperfect Turn, he puts it toour sides, and pricks us forward to Turn again, he gins, he forwards, he facillitates our Turn, he urgeth us forward, nor will let us shrink back, till we have made perfect our Turn. 
Bas. O●m●nent in Isai.  Saint Basil calls it plainly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a Tautology; for one Convertimini had been enough, had plainly expressed, what God intended; but, as if we could never Turn enough, as if we could never Turn fare enough from our evil ways, He calls, and calls again, turn ye, even now turn ye: Though you be turned, you may not Turn to the right way; Though you be turned to the right way, you are in danger still, turn ye, turn ye, you are not safe enough, when you are safe; nor turned enough when you are turned, unless you turn again.  
At the beginning of the verse, God is at vivo ego, As I live, saith the Lord, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; I would have you Turn: and an Oath, saith the Apostle, is for confirmation; 
Heb. 6.16.  and here he ends the verse with a vehement Ingemination, Turn ye, Turn ye; and Tautologies in Scripture, saith Saint Basil, are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the Apostles own word, for Confirmation; Foelices nos, saith Tert. happy we, for whose sake God will swear, but unhappy we, if he swear in vain (although it cannot be in vain) and happy we, for whose sake God, who hateth Babbling, will yet multiply words, nay, reiterate the same; but most unhappy we, if we harken not to his voice; if our Turn and Conversion be not as real, as the Ingemination is loud and vehement; if there be not a Religious Tautology, a constant, reinforced, continued Turn in our Repentance.  
To draw then the lines, by which we are to pass; we may observe, There be two main lets and hindrances of our Conversion, I may call them retinacula poenitentiae, that hang upon us, and hold us back, when we should Turn; Despair on the one side, and Presumption on the other: Despair makes it too late to repent; presumption makes it soon enough, though it be never so late; presumption makes, and breaks a Resolution every day, Despair will make no more; Presumption makes an evening, a bedtime Repentance; she will Turn at last; Despair Nullam, no Repentance at all, Never, Never. Now this Ingemination is as Thunder to them both; loud in the ears of those, that Despair, turn ye, Turn ye, It is not too late; and Terrible in the ears of those that presume; Turn ye, Turn ye, It cannot be soon enough; and as lightning, flashing in the face of the presumptuous sinner, showing him the horror of his ways, and that Death is in the way; and discovering to the drooping, or rather Dead soul, the riches of his Mercy, That though Death be in the way; at the very door; yet Death is not unavoidable.  
From this Ingemination then, we may gather, First; Gods love to repentance, to rouse us from Despair. 2ly, The necessary and essential properties of Repentance; It must be 
1.  1. matura conversio, a speedy and sudden Turn: Turn ye, Turn ye, lest it be too late. 
2.  2ly, Syncera Conversio, a Turn, and real Turn, a Turn in good earnest: 
3.  and 3ly, plena poenitentia, as the Ancients used to speak, a full Repentance, a total Repentance; a Turn from all our evil ways; a Turn never to look back again; and these will keep us from presumption.  
Of these in their Order.  
Turn ye, Turn ye, is a vehement Ingemination to rouse us from Despair: and indeed, no greater Argument can be brought against despair; then Gods Bowels, and Compassion, than his loud, and open proffer of Mercy. For if it were too late to Turn, he would not thus call after us; If we could not Turn at all, one call were too many, and then what need this noise? this Ingemination? bring in the most despairing Christian living, and if this voice from heaven awake him not, I must pronounce him not only dead in sin, but in Hell already.  
For it is easy to observe, That the ground of all despair is not from hence; That we cannot, but that we will not Turn, which much resembles that Despair, which chains the damned Spirits in the place of torment; so fare we are like to them, that we despair for want of Charity, which they can never have, nor the despairing Sinner (as he thinks) and therefore will not have: not for want of Faith, which they have, as well as he, and tremble: we despair not, I say, for want of Faith; For 'tis plain, If we did not believe, we could not Despair, unless, peradventure, we do, with some, conceive of Faith, as that Instrument or habit, by which we do apply, and appropriate Christ's Merits, and Promises to our souls, which indeed is rather an Act of our Hope, then of our Faith; Despair being nothing else, but the disability of applying Christ's merits to ourselves, which is the effect, not of Infidelity, but ungodliness. For we believe, This is the way, and we know we have not walked in it, and so Despair we are not where in Scripture commanded, to be assured of our Salvation; but we are enjoined in plain Terms to make our Election sure; nor are we any where in Scripture forbid to Despair, but if we make not good the Condition, we are forbid to Hope, and in that commanded, to love Christ, and keep his Commandments, that we may never despair. Miserable Dilemma, when Imust neither Despair, nor hope; for I cannot let in Despair, till I have let in that Monster sin, which begat it; and when that is let in, and hath gained the Dominion, there is no room for hope. Ask Judas himself, and he will tell you, there is a God; for if there were no God, no Heaven, nor Hell, There could be no such thing as Conscience; Ask him again; and he will tell you he is true, or he denies him to be God; He will tell you of the riches of the glorious Mystery of our Redemption, 
Coloss. 1.27.  and that in Christ Remission of sins was promised; But his many sins, and his late sin of Betraying his Master, cast so thick a Cloud over his Judgement, that he could not see any beam of Mercy cast towards him, and so he concludes both against God and himself; There is mercy for Thousands, but not for him: God calls sinners to Repentance, but not Judas, and when all the world may Turn, he will go and hang himself. Thus may our sins go over our heads, and over those Mercies too, which might be over our sins, and make us very witty to argue and dispute against ourselves; even dispute ourselves into Hell: A neglect of our Duty begat Despair, and Despair basely improves, and augments our neglect; and if we judge rightly, our non posse is a noll., we cannot turn, because we will not turn; for if we would but turn (which we may if we will) Despair would sink and vanish out of sight, and mercy would shine forth through this cloud, and give light enough to fly fare from that evil, the fear of which had covered our faces, and in a manner buried us alive: for a Despairing man is but a dead carcase, actuated not by a soul, but a Devil. We need not seek fare for Arguments; for despair is an argument against itself: For it, there could never be any; the best that we have heard of, is but the Logic of Fools, which is Logic without reason, I cannot hope, because I cannot hope; 'Tis true, he cannot hope, in statu quo nunc, as they speak, in the state and condition he now is; and there is reason for that; for why should an enemy to God, hope for his favour? why should Dives hope for a place in Abraham's bosom? and yet, he may hope for his favour, Resolve to turn from his evil ways, which will first build up him in righteousness, and then build up a Hope upon the ruins of Despair. Sin is the foundation of Despair, and if we repent not, will bear it up; but upon our Turn, Righteousness casts down the Foundation itself, and with it Despair, and in the fall grinds it to pieces, and in the place of it Erects a Pillar, a saving Hope, a hope, which is not ashamed to enter the Holy of Holyes, and lay hold on the Mercy-seat, which was hidden and veiled before.  
Quare contristaris anima mea? 
Psal. 43.  Why art thou cast down, Oh my soul? why art thou troubled within me? Spera in Domino; trust thou in the Lord, and if thou fear him, and leave thy evil ways, thou mayest trust him; he will not, he cannot fail thee, thou hast him fettered, and entangled with his own promises, which are yea, and Amen, and all the power on Earth, all the Devils in Hell, nay, his own power cannot reverse them; For his Justice, his Wisdom, his Mercy hath sealed them, Read his character, (and he made it himself) He is merciful, righteous, and full of compassion, and Saint Ambrose it was that observed it, that here is mercy twice mentioned, 
Psal. 116.5.  and Justice but once, and he adds for our encouragement, what? to hope, nay, but to turn, that we may hope, In medio Justitia est, gemino septo inclusa misericordiae, Justice is shut up in the midst, and hedge d in on every side with Mercy; if thou turn from thy evil ways, Mercy shines upon thy Tabernacle, and Justice is the same it was, but confined and bound up, that it cannot, that it shall never reach thee to destroy thee: when thou sinnedst, he was Just to punish thee; and now thou turnest from thy evil ways unto him, he is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a righteous Judge still, but to receive thee, and reward thee.  
They in the Primitive times, who fell away in times of persecution, and afterwards returned to the bosom of the Church, and confessed and bewailed their Apostasy (though it were rather verbal then real, and to which they were drawn rather by the fear of smart, than hatred to the Gospel) were said, by the Greek Fathers, 
Cypr. 〈◊〉 lib. de Lapsis.  〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, which Saint Cyprian interprets; Elatum primâ victo: viâ hostem secundo certamine superare, to recover the field, and by a second onset, to foil that enemy, who did glory in a former conquest; and to defy the tempter after a fall. The Novatians, who called themselves 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Puritans of those times, (and they had good reason so to do) as good reason as a deformed man hath to call himself Boniface, or a wicked man write himself innocent: for they were proud, merciless, and covetous (nazianzen's lays it to their charge) goodly and fit ingredients to make up that sweet composition of Purity; These withstood their receiving into the Church, but not without the Church's heaviest censure. Saint Jerom, for all their name, calls them by one quite contrary, Immundissimos the impurest men of all the world; pietatis paternae aversarios, 
Nazianz. or. 14.  the Enemies of God's mercy and goodness, and Nazianzen tells them their Religion was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, impudence, 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ibid.  and uncleanness, which had nothing but the name of Purity, which they made, saith he, a bait to catch and cajol the ignorant, and unwary multitude: who are taken more with the Trumpet of a Pharisee, then with his alms, and are fed with shows and pretences, as they say Chameleons are with air. For, as Basil, and Nazianzen observe, this severe Doctrine of these proud and covetous men, did drive the offending Brethren into despair, and despair did plunge them deeper in sin; left them wallowing in the mire, in their blood and pollution; being held down by a false opinion, that no hand could draw them out, and that pardon was impossible; whereas a Convertimini the Doctrine of Repentance might have raised them from the ground, drawn them out of their blood and fail'th: strengthened their feeble knees, and hands hat hang down, put courage and and life into them, to turn from that evil, which had cast them down, and stand up to see, and meet the Salvation of the Lord.  
And this is the proper and Natural effect of mercy, to give sight to the blind, that they may see, to bind up a broken limb that it may move: and to raise us from the dead, that we may walk, to make us good, who were evil: For this is shines in brightness upon us every day, not only to enlighten them, who sit in darkness, but many times the children of light themselves, who though they sit not in darkness, yet may be under a cloud, raise up, and settled in the brain, not from a corrupt, but a tender, and humble Heart. For we cannot think that every man that says he despairs, is cast away, and lost; or that our erroneous Judgement of our state, and condition, shall be the rule, by which God will proceed against us, and Judge us at the last day; that when we have set our hearts to serve him, and have been serious in all our ways, when we have made good the condition, i. e. our part of the Covenant, as far as the Covenant of Grace, and the equity and gentleness of the Gospel doth exact it, he will refuse to make good his part, because we cannot think well of ourselves, and though we have done, what is required, persuade ourselves that we are fallen so short in the performance of our duty, that we shall never reach to the end; in a word; that he will forbear to pronounce the Euge well done, because we are afraid, and tremble at all our works, or put us by and reject us after all the labour of our charity, for a melancholy fit, or condemn the soul, for the distemper of the body or some perturbation of the mind, which he had not strength enough to withstand, though he were strong in the Lord; and in the power of his spirit did cheerfully run the ways of his Commandments. It were a great want of Charity thus to Judge of those, whose troublesome, and most afflicting error was conceived and form in the very bowels of charity.  
For sometimes it proceeds from the distemper of the body, from some indisposition of the brain, and if we have formerly and do yet strive to do him service, he is not so hard and austere a Master, as to punish us for being sick. Sometimes it arises from some defect in the judicative faculty, through which, as we make more Laws to ourselves, and so more sins than there are; so we are as ready to pass sentence against ourselves, not only for the breach of those Laws, which none could bind us to, but ourselves; but even of those also, which we were so careful to keep; for as we see some men so strong, or rather so stupid, that they think, they do nothing amiss; so there be others (but not many) so weak, or rather so scrupulous, that they cannot persuade themselves, that they ever did any thing well. This is an infirmity and disease, but it is not Epidemical. The first are a great multitude, which 'tis hard to number, quocunque sub axe they are in every Climate, and in every place, but most often in the Courts of Princes, and the habitations of the Rich, who can do evil, but will not see it, who can make the loud condemnation of a fact, and the bold doing it, the business of one, and the same hour; almost of one and the same moment: The other are not many, for they are a part of that little Flock, and the good Shepherd will not drive them out of the fold, for the weak conceit they had, that they had gone too far astray. For error is then most dangerous and fatal, when we do that which is evil, not when we shun and fly from it, as from the plague, and yet cannot believe, we are removed far enough from the infection of it.  
And therefore (again) it may have its Original not only from the Acrasie and discomposedness of the outward-man, or the weakness in Judgement, or that ignorance of their present estate (which may happen to good men, even to those, who have made some fair proficiency in the School of Christ; and to which we are very subject amidst that variety of circumstances, that perplexity, and multiplicity of thoughts, which rise and sink, and return again, and strangle one another, to bring in others in their place) but it may be brought in by our very care and diligence, and an intensive love: For care, and diligence, and love, are always followed with fears and jealousies: love is ever a beginning, till all be done, and is but setting out, till she be at her journeys end. The liberal man is afraid of his Alms, and the Temperate mistrusts his abstinence; the meek man is jealous of every heat: pietas etiam tuta pertimescit, piety is afraid even of safety itself, because it is piety, and cannot be safe enough. And if it be a fault thus to undervalue himself, it is a fault of a fair extraction, begotten not by blood or the will of men, not by negligence, and wilfulness, and the pollutions of the flesh, but of care and anxiety, and an unsatisfied love, which will sometimes demur, and be at a stand, in the greatest Certainty; so that, though the lines be fallen to him in a fair place, and he have a Goodly Heritage, a well settled spiritual Estate, yet he may sometimes look upon it, as Bankrupts do upon their temporal worn out Debts and Statutes, and Mortgages, and next to nothing. Every man hath not a place and mansion in Heaven, that pretends a Title to it; nor is every man shut out, that doubts of his evidence. This diffidence in ourselves is commonly the mark and Character of a Good man, who would be better; and though he hath built up his assurance as strong as he can, yet thinks himself not sure enough, but seeks for further assurance, and fortify's it with his Fear, and assiduous diligence, that it may stand fast for ever, whereas we see too many draw out their own Assurance, and seal it up with unclean Hands, with wicked hands, with hands full of Blood.  
We have read of some in the days of our Forefathers, and have heard of others in our own, and no doubt many there have been, of whom we never heard, whose Conversation was such as became the Gospel of Christ, and yet have felt that hell within themselves, which they could not discover to others, but by ghastly looks, Outcries, and deep Groans, and loud complaints to them who were near them; That Hell itself could not be worse, nor had more Torments, than they felt: And these may seem to be breathed forth, not from a broken, but a perishing heart; to be the very Dialect of Despair; and indeed so they are, for Despair, in the worst acception, cannot sink us lower than hell: But yet we cannot, we may not be of their opinion, and think (what they say) that they are cast out of God's sight; No, God sees them, looks upon them with an Eye full of compassion, and most times sends an Angel to them, in this their Agony, as he did unto Christ, a message of Comfort to rouse them up; but if their tenderness should yet raise doubts, and draw the cloud still over them; we have reason to think (and who dares say the contrary?) that the hand of Mercy may, even through this cloud, receive them to that Sabbath and rest, which remains for the people of God.  
I speak of men, who have been severe to themselves, and watchful in this their Warfare; full of good works, and continued in them: and, who have many times, when they were even at the gates of heaven, and near unto happiness, these Terrors and affrightments, who are full of Charity, and therefore cannot be destitute of hope, although their own sad apprehensions, and the breathe of a Tender Conscience have made the operation of it less sensible, and their hope be, not like Aaron's rod, cut off, dried up, and utterly dead; but rather like a tree in Winter, in which there is life and faculty, yet the absence of the Sun, or the cold benumbing it, suffers no force of life to work; but when that draws near, and yields its warmth and Influence, it will bud and blossom, and bring forth fruit, and leaf together.  
The Case then of every man that Despairs, is not desperate; but we must consider despair in its Causes, which produce and work it. If it be exhaled and drawn up out of our corrupt works, and a polluted Conscience, the stream of it is poisonous, and deleteriall, the very smoke of the bottomless pit; but if it proceed from the distemper of the body (which seizes upon one, as well as another) or a weakness of Judgement (which befalls many, who may be weak, and yet Pious) or an excessive solicitude, and tenderness of soul (which is not so common) we cannot think, it can have that force and malignity, as to pull him back, who is now thus striving to enter in at the narrow gate, or to cut him off from salvation, who hath wrought it out with Fear and trembling. At the Day of Judgement, the Question will be, not what was our Opinion, and conceit of ourselves, but what our conversation was, and what we thought of our Estate, but what we did to raise it? not of our fancied application of the Promises, but whether we have performed the Condition; For then the Promises will apply themselves; God hath promised, and he will make it good: we shall not be asked what we thought, but what we did? for how many have thought themselves sure, who never came to the knowledge of their Error, till it was too late? How many have called themselves Saints, who have now their portion with Hypocrites? How many have fancied themselves into Heaven, whose wilful disobedience carried them another way? on the other side, how many have believed, and yet doubted? how many have been synceere in the ways of Righteousness, and yet drooped? How many have fainted, even in their Savours Arms, when his Mercies did compassed them in on every side? how many have been in he greatest Agony, when they were nearest to their Exaltation? How many have condemned themselves to hell, who now sit crowned in the highest Heavens? I know nothing by myself, 
2 Cor. 4.4.  saith Saint Paul, yet am not thereby Justified; Hoc dicit, 
Dialogo adv. Pelagium.  ne forte quid per ignorantiam deliquisset, saith Saint Hierom, though he knew nothing, yet something he might have done amiss, which he did not know, and though our Conscience accuse us not of greater crimes, yet our Conscience may tell us, we may have committed many sins, of which she could give us no Information; and this may cast a mist about him, who walketh as in the Day: In a word; a man may doubt, and yet be saved, and a man may assure himself, and yet perish; a man may have a groundless Hope, and a man may have a groundless Fear; and when we see two thus contrarily Elemented, the one drooping, the other cheerful; the one rejoicing in the Lord, whom he offends, the other trembling before him, whom he loves, we may be ready to pity the one, and bless the Condition of the other, cast away the Elect, and choose the Reprobate; and therefore; we must not be too rash to Judge, but leave the Judgement to him, who is Judge both of the quick and dead; and will neither condemn the Innocent, for his Fear; or justify the man that goes on in his sin, for his Assurance.  
Take Comfort than thou disconsolate soul, which art strucken down into the place of Dragons, and art in this terror, and anguish of heart; This fear to thine is but a cloud, and it will drop down and distil in Blessings upon thy head; This Agony will bring down an Angel; This sorrow will be turned into joy; and this Doubt answered, this despair vanish, that Hope may take its proper place again, the Heart of a penitent. Thy Fear is better, than other men's confidence, thy anxiety more Comsortable, than their security; Thy doubting more favoured, than their assurance, Timor tuus, securitas tua, thy fear of Death will end in the firm expectation of Eternal life. Though thou art tossed on a Tumultuous Sea, thy Mast spent, and thy Tackling torn, yet thou shalt at last strike in to shore; when these proud Sailors shall shipwreck in a Calm. Misinterpret not this thy dejection of Spirit, thy sad and pensive Thoughts, nor seek too suddenly to remove them: an afflicted Conscience, in the time of health, is the most hopeful and Sovereign Physic, that is; thy fear of Death is a certain Symptom, and infallible sign of life; there is no Horror of the Grave to him that lies in't, Death only is terrible to the living, and then there can be no stronger argument that thou art alive, than this; that thou doubtest, thou art dead already.  
And list up thy head too, Thou despairing, and almost Desperate sinner, whom (not thy many sins) but thy unwillingness to leave them, hath brought to the ‛ Dust of Death; who first blasphemest God, & then drawest the punishment nearer to thee, than he would have it, and art thy own Hangman and Executioner; not that Pardon is denied, but that thou wilt not ●ue it out: Look about thee, and thou mayest see Hope coming towards thee, and many Arguments to bring it in; An Argument from thy soul, which is not quite lost, till it be in hell, and if thou wilt possess it, it shall not be lost; An argument from thy will, which is free and mutable, and may Turn to good, as well as evil; An argument from the very Habit of sin, which presseth thee down, which though it be strong, yet is it not stronger than the grace of god, and the activity of thy will: It is very difficult indeed, but the Christian man's work is, to overcome difficulties: An argument from those shoals and multitudes of offenders, who have wrought themselves out of the power of death, and the state of Damnation; from many, who have committed as many sins as thou, but this one, of Despair, from those Publicans and sinners, who have entered into the Kingdom of Heaven; An argument from thy own argument, which thou so unskilfully turnst against thyself; for it is no argument; 'tis but a weak peremptory conclusion, held up without any Premises, or Reason that can enforce it: For Despair is but Pe●itio Principii, proves, and concludes the same, by the same, makes our sins greater than God's Mercies, because they are so; and Repentance impossible, because it is so; Though the Soul be not quite lost, till it be lost for ever; though the will be free, and Grace offers itself, though the voice of God be, Turn, Though multitudes have Turned, and that which hath been done, may be done again: Though the Argument be no Argument, yet despair doth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, against what reason ●oever, hold up the Conclusion. Thou sayest, That God cannot forgive thee; if he cannot, than he is not merciful, neither is he just, and so he is not God; and then what needst thou despair? we begin in sin, proceed to Blasphemy, and so end in despair. But a God he is, and merciful; but thy sins are greater than his Mercies; which is another Blasphemy, and brings in something more Infinite than God, and takes God's office from him, and dispenses his Mercies, of which he alone is Lord, and shuts up his rich Treasury of goodness, when he is ready, and willing to lay it open; and so ruins us, in despite of God. But thou sayest, Though canst not repent, which is thy greatest error, and the main cause of thy despair (for when the heart is thus hard, it beats off all succours, that are offered, all those means, which may be as Oil to supple it.) Thou canst not, is not true; Thou shouldst say, Thou wilt not Repent; for if thou wilt, thou mayst: for thou canst not tell, whether thou canst repent or no, because thou never yet putst it to the Trial, but being in the pit, didst shut the mouth of it upon thyself, and stop it up with a false opinion of God, and of thyself, with dark notions, and worthless conceits of Impossibilities Behold, God calls after thee again, and again, his Grace (as a devout Writer speaks) is most officious to take thee out; his Mercy ready to embrace thee, if thou do not stubbornly cast her off. Behold a multitude of penitents who have escaped the wrath to come, and be●ken to thee, by their example, to follow after them, and retire from these Hellish thoughts and conclusions, into the same shadow and shelter, where they are safe from those false suggestions, and fiery darts of the enemy; and if this will not move thee, then behold, the blood of an immaculate Lamb streaming down to wash away thy sins, and with them thy despair; to raise thee from thy Grave, this sepulchre of rotten bones & baneful Imaginations, that thou mayest walk before him in the land of the living; to beget Repentance, and to beget a hope; to pity us in our tentations, who was sensible of his own; 
Hebr.  and to drive despair from off the face of the earth. For why should the name of a Saviour, and despair be heard of in the same coasts? if it breath within the curtains of the Church, 'tis not Christ, but the Devil, and our sensuality that brings it in. The end of his coming was to destroy it; for this he came into the world: for this he died: Ask Christ, saith Saint Basil, what he carries on his Shoulders? it is the lost sheep: Ask the Angels, for whom they rejoice? it is for a sinner, that repenteth. Ask God for what he is so earnest, as to call and call again; It is for those who are now in their evil ways. Ask the Shepherd, and he will tell you he left ninty and nine, to find but one lost sheep; his desire is on us, and he had rather we would be guided by his Shepherds-staff, then be broken by his rod of iron; if thou wilt return, return; his wisdom hath pointed out to it, as the fittest way; His justice yields, and will look friendly on thee, whilst thou art in this way, and mercy will go along with thee, and save thee at the end; If thou wilt, thou mayest Turn; and if thou wilt Turn, thou shalt not despair, or if a cloud overspread thee, it shall vanish at the brightness of mercy, as a mist before the Sun.  
Here then is Balm of Gilead; Turn ye, Turn ye, a loving compassionate call to turn even those who despair of turning; 
The second hindrance presumption.  a Doctrine of singular comfort; but this Balm is not for every wound, nor will it drop, and distil upon him who goeth on in his sin: for mercy is as strong drink and wine, to be given to them who are ready to perish, and to such who have grief of heart. 
Prov. 31.6.  Many times it falls out by reason of our presumption, and hardness of heart, that there is more danger in pressing some truth, then in maintaining errors; care not for the morrow is as Music to the sluggard, and he hears it with delight, and folds his hands to sleep; If we commend labour, the covetous hath encouragement enough to drudgon: to rise up early, and lie down late, to gain the meat that perisheth, if we but mention a worship in spirit and truth, the sacrilegious person takes up his hammer, and down goes ceremony and order, and the Temple itself; how many solifidians hath free grace occasioned? how many Libertines, hath the indiscreet pressing of the freedom we have by Christ, raised? the Gospel itself we see hath been made the savour of death unto death, and mercy, malevolent; At what time soever etc. hath scarce with many left any time to repent, and therefore it will concern us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, 
Epist. 20. ad Basil. Magn.  as Nazianzen speaks with Art and prudence to dispense the word of truth, or as Saint Paul speaks 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to cut it out as they did their sacrifices, by a certain method, to give every one his proper food in due season; for some dispositions are so corrupted, that they may be poisoned with Antidotes. 
Theod. Therap.  Theodoret observes that God himself did not fully and plainly teach the Jews the Doctrine of the Trinity; lest that wavering and fickle Nation might have took it by the wrong handle, and made it an occasion of relapse into that Idolatrous conceit, which they had learned in Egypt, of worshipping many gods. The Novatians error, who would not accept of penance after Baptism, so much as once, though no Physic for a sinner, yet might have proved a good Antidote against sin; for men (had they believed it) would (some at least) have been more shy of sin, and more wary in ordering their steps, and shunned that sin, as a Serpent, which would excommunicate them, and shut them for ever out of the Church. And therefore the Orthodox Fathers (even there where they oppose that assumed, and unwarranted severity of the Novatian) deliver the Doctrine of Repentance with great caution and circumspection, and a seeming reluctancy; invite loquor, 
Ter. de penitent. Bas. t m 1. Hem. 14.  saith Tertul. I am made unwilling to publish this free mercy of God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, saith Saint Basil, I speak the truth in fear; for my desire is, that after Baptism you should sin no more, and my fear is, you will sin more, and more upon presumption of Repentance and mercy; He would, and he would not publish the free mercy of God in Christ, he was bound to preach Repentance and yet he feared. What means that profuse yet sparing tender of God's mercy? these large Panegyrics, and as great jealousies? why did they so much extol Repentance, and yet male ominari presage such an evil consequence out of that, which they had presented to all the world in so desirable a shape? But now the Father was so taken, so delighted with the contemplation of it, discovered so much power in it, that he thought the Devils themselves in the interim and time between their fall and the Creation of man, might have reprented, and been Angels of light still, and now drawing in his hand and putting it forth with fear and trembling: before holding out Repentance, as a board, or plank to every shipwrecked soul, but now fearing, lest Repentance itself should become a rock: one would think the holy Father himself were turned Novatian, and to speak truth, that which the Novatians pretence, to deny Repentance after Baptism, expressed these expressions from him, and was the true cause, which was made him publish it, with so much fear, ne nobis subsidia paenitentiae blandiantur, that men might not be betrayed by the flattery and pleasing appearance of that, which should advantage them, and levelly their thoughts on that benefit which it might bring to them, and boldly claim it as their own: though they are willing to forget, and leave unregarded, that part of it, which should make way, to let it in: and hearing of so precious an Antidote, presume it will have the same virtue and operation at any time, and so after many delays, make no use of it at all: That the Doctrine of Repentance might not makes us stand in more need of Repentance; in a word: that, that which is a remedy, might not by our ill handling and applying it, be turned into a disease. Look into the world, and you will see there is great need of so much fear, and such a caution; and that more fall by presumption, than despair: non am morbis, quam remedio laboramus, by our own folly and the Devil's craft, our disease doth not hurt us so much, as our remedy, and Repentance which was ordained, as the best Physic to purge the soul, is turned into that poison, that corrupts and kills it. What wand'ring thought? what Idle word? what profane action is there, which is not laid upon this fair foundation. The hope of pardon, which yet will not bear up such hay and stubble: we call sin a disease, and so it is, a mortal one, but presumption is the greatest, the very corruption of the blood and spirits, of the best parts of the soul, we are sick of sin; 'tis true, but that we feel not: but we are sick, very sick of mercy: sick of the Gospel, sick of Repentance, sick of Christ himself; and of this we make our boast: and our bold reliance on this, doth so infatuate us, that we take little care to purge out the plague of our heart, which we nourish and look upon, as upon health itself, we are sick of the Gospel, for we receive it, and take it down, and it doth not purge out, but enrage those evil humours which discompose the soul: we receive it as Judas did the sop: we receive it, and with it a devil.  
For this bold and groundless presumption of pardon makes us like unto him; hardens our heart first, and then our face; and carries us with the swelling sails of impudence, and remorslesnes, to an extremity of daring, to that height of impiety, from which we cannot so easily descend, but must fall, and break and bruise our salves to pieces: praesumptio inverecundiae portio, saith Tert. prsumption is a part and portion, and the upholder of immodesty: and falls, and cares not whither: ruins us, and we know not how; abuses and dishonours that mercy, which it makes a wing to shadow it, and hath been the best purveyor for sin and the kingdom of darkness. We read but of one Judas in the Gospel, that despaired, and hanged himself, and so went to his place; but how many thousands have gone a contrary way with less anguish and reluctancy; with fair, but false hopes, with strong, but feigned assurances, and met him there? Oh 'tis one of the devil's subt lest stratagems, to make sin and hope of heaven to dwell under the same roof, to teach him who is his vassal, to walk delicately in his evil ways, and to rejoice always in the Lord, even then, when he fights against him, to assure himself of life, in the chambers of death. And thus every man is sure; the Schismatic is sure, and the Libertine is sure: the Adulterer is sure, and the Murderer is sure: the Traitor is sure: they are sure, who have no savour, no relish of Salvation. The Schismatic hath made his peace; though he have no charity; The Libertine looks for his reward, though he do not only deny good works, but contemn them. The Adulterer absolves himself without Penance; The Murderer knows David is entered Heaven, and hopes to follow him, The Prosperous Traitor is in Heaven already; his present success is a fair earnest of another inheritance that God that favours him here, will Crown him hereafter; Every man can do what he list, and be what he list, do what good men tremble to think of, and yet sear not at all, but expect the Salvation of the Lord; first damn, and then Canonize himself; For the greatest part of the Saints of this World, have been of their own Creation, made up in the midst of the land of darkness, with noise, with Thunder, and Earthquakes, (we may be bold to say) if Despair hath killed her thousand, presumption hath slain her ten thousand.  
Foolish men that we are, who hath bewitched us, to lay hold on Christ, when we thrust him from us? to make him our own, and impropriate him when we crucify, and persecute him every day? that we had rather fancy and imagine, then make our election sure? that will have health, and yet care not how they feed; or what poison they let down; that make salvation an arbitrary thing, to be met with when we please, and can as easily be Saints as we can eat, and drink, as we can kill and slay? good God what mist and darkness is this, which makes men possessed with sin, which is an enemy ready to devour them, to be thus quiet and secure? could, or would we but a little awake, and consult with the light of our faith and reason, we should soon let go our confidence, and plainly see the danger we are in, whilst we are in our evil ways, and find fear tied fast unto them; so saith Saint Paul, but if you sin, fear. For Christian security, and hope of life is the proper and alone issue of a good conscience, through faith in Christ purged from dead and evil works, if we will leave our fear, we must leave our evil works behind us. Assurance is too choice a piece, to be beat out by the fancy, and to be made up when we please; at a higher price, then to be purchased with a thought; it is a work, that will take up an age to finish it, the engagement of our whole life, to be wrought out with fear and trembling, not to be taken as a thing granted; as the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉; and so set up as a pillar of hope, when here is no better basis, and foundation for it, than a forced and fading thought; which is next to air, and will perish sooner, the young man in the Gospel, had yet no knowledge of any such Assurance office; and therefore he puts up his question to our Saviour thu; Good Master, what good thing shall I do, that I may enter into life? He saw no Hope of entering in, at that narrow Gate, with such prodigious sins: and our Saviour's answer is, Keep the Commandments; that is, Turn from your evil ways. Be not envious, malicious, Covetous, Cruel, False, Deceitful; Despair is the Daughter of sin, and darkness, but confidence is the Emanation of a good Conscience; what flesh and Blood makes up, is but a Phantasm, which appears, and disappears; is seen, and vanisheth; so soon gone, that we scarce know, whether we saw it, or no; there can be no firm hope raised, but upon that: which is as Mount Zion, and standeth fast for ever; which is our best guard in our way; nay, which is our way in this our life, and when we are dead will follow us: nothing can bear and afford it but this; unum arbustum non alit duos Erithacoes; 
Eras. Adag.  Sin and Assurance are Birds too quarrelsome to dwell in the same Bush, and therefore, if you sin, Fear, or rather, Turn from your evil ways, and then you shall have 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Boldness, and Confidence towards God.  
We must therefore sink and fall low, and mitigate our voice, and speak more Faintly, and Remissly, when we call after the presumptuous sinner to Turn, as if his last period were near, and it were almost too late for him to begin, not magnify Repentance too much, lest he make it a Pass and Warrant to sin again, and have more need of it: And we may tell him what is most true, Repentance is a command indeed, but praeceptum ex suppositione (as Aquinas speaks) a command not absolute, but upon a Si, a supposition: for we are not commanded to repent, as we are, to believe; as we are to fear God, and Honour our Parents, but upon supposition: If we sinne, we have an Advocate, that will plead for us: The command, which is absolute, is, to do his will. Repentance is Tabula post naufragium, saith Saint Hierome, 
Naz. O. 15.  is as a plank reached out after Shipwreck; but it is better to ride in the ship in a calm, then to hang on the Mast in a Tempest: Repentance is a virtue, but of that nature, that the less we stand in need of it, the more virtuous we are, it is a purgative potion, but 'tis better never to be sick, then to rise from our beds by the help of a Physician. It was commendable in him that could say, He thanked God, he was now reconciled to his Mother; but he was more praiseworthy, who replied; That he thanked God, That he was never reconciled to his, for he never offended her. It is good to Repent, but it is better not to sin: Oh, it is a great Happiness, to be restored to the Favour of God, but it is a greater, never to lose it; it is good to appease him; but 'tis our safest course, never to anger him, in a word; it is better to be ever with him, then by Famine or Pestilence to be forced to return, better not acquire an Evil Habit, then shake it off; better never set a step in evil ways; then to be called out of them with so much noise; better never err, then Turn.  
For conclusion; It will concern us then, not to put too much Trust and confidence in our Helps; not to be careless of our health, upon presumption of Remedy; not to sin, because grace hath abounded; not to spend prodigally, 
Rom.  upon hope of supply; not to oblige ourselves too fare, because we see a hand of ●lercy ready to cancel the Bill. How many have these Hopes deluded? How many have been betrayed by their helps? how many Cities had now stood, 
Fit, ut eâ parte capiantur urbes quâ sunt munitissimae. Polyb. l. 7.  had they had no other Walls but their men? for whilst we trust in these, we neglect ourselves, and so make them not only useless, but disadvantageous to us; and we are soiled by our strength, poisoned with our Physic, lost and betrayed in the midst of our Fort, with all our succours and Artillery about us; we Trust in God, and offend him, look steadfastly towards the Mercy-seat, and fall into the Bottomless Pit.  
And therefore in the last place, let us not be too bold with his Mercy, 
Hos 3. v. last.  but learn, To fear God and his goodness; not to make Mercy an occasion of sin, and so consequently of Judgement, which she is so ready to remove. For at the very name of Mercy, at the sound of this Music, we lie down and rest in Peace; It is Mercy that saves us, and we wound ourselves to death with Mercy: And as he that looks upon the Sun with a steady eye, when he removes his eye, hath the Image of the Sun presented almost in every object; so when we have long gazed on the Mercy-seat, our eye gins to dazzle, and Mercy seems to shine upon us in all our Actions, and at all times, and in every place. We see Mercy in the Law quite abolishing and destroying it, silencing the many woes denounced against sinners. When we sin, Mercy is ready before us; That we may do it with less regret; That no worm may gnaw us; when our Conscience chides, Mercy is at Hand, to make our Peace. And this in the time of Health; and when our strength faileth, and sickness hath laid us on our Bed; we suborn, and corrupt it to give us a visit then, when we can scarce call for it; to stand by us in this Evil day, when we can do no good, that we may die in Hope, who had no Charity; and be saved by that Jesus, whom we have crucified: And as it falls out sometimes with men of great Learning and Judgement, who can resolve every doubt, and answer the strongest Argument and objection, yet are many times puzzled with a piece of Sophistry; so it is with the formal Christian; He can stand out against all motives and Beseeching, and all the Batteries of God; all his Calls, and Obtestations against the Terrors of Hell, and sweet allurements of his Promises, but is shaken and foiled with a Fallacy, with the Devil's Fallacy; à Dicto secundum quid, ad Dictum simpliciter. That Mercy doth save sinners that Repent; and Therefore it saveth all; and upon this Ground, which glides away from us: upon this reason, which is no Reason, the pleasures, which are but for a season, shall prevail with us, when heaven with its bliss and eternity cannot move us, and the trouble which Repentance brings to the flesh, shall affright us from good, more than the torments which are eternal can from sin.  
And therefore to conclude: Let us fear the mercy of God, so fear it, that it may not hurt us; so fear it, that it may embrace us on every side; so fear it, that it may save us in the Day of the Lord Jesus. Let our song be made up, as david's was of these discords, Mercy and Judgement. Let us set and compose our life by Judgement, that we may not presume, and Turn our fear by Mercy, 
Psal. 101.1.  that we may not despair: remember we were Prisoners, and remember we were Redeemed: Remember we were weak and impotent; and remember we were made whole; Remember what Christ hath done for us, and remember what we are to do for ourselves, and so work out our salvation with fear and trembling, and then draw near with a true heart, in full assurance of faith to the throne of Grace; that God's Wisdom and Justice, and Mercy may guide us in all our ways, till they bring us into those new Heavens, wherein dwelleth righteousness, where God shall be glorified in us, and we glorified in him to all eternity.    

THE SEVENTH SERMON.  

PART III.  EZEKIEL 33.11. 
Turn ye, Turn ye from your evil ways etc.  
THE word is loud; the call sudden, and vehement, and we have heard it loud in the ears of them that Despair; Turn, Turn ye, it is not too late; and terrible to them that presume, Turn ye, Turn ye; it is not soon enough: and it cannot sound with terror enough; For, we see, presumption is a more general, and spreading evil, and it lames and cripples us, makes us halt in our turn, that we Turn not soon enough; or if some judgement, or affliction Turn us about, our Turn is but a proffer, a turn in show not in reality; or if we do Turn indeed, it is but a turn by halfs; a turn from this sin, but not from all; or a false hope deludes us, and we are ever a turning, and never turn. Our December is our January, our last month is our first day of the year, our thirty days hence, nay, our last hour, is to morrow, is now, 
Cate cras prosiciscetur. h e. post triginta dies. Plutarch. in vitâ Cat. Vtic.  (as Cato's servents used to say of him) our picture is a man; our shadows, substances; our feigned repentance, true, our limb is a body, our partial Repentance, a complete one, and a single Turn from one sin, universal. And therefore the Schools will tell us, that presumption stands at greater opposition with Hope, then with Fear. One would think indeed, the presumption did include a Hope, and shut out Fear; and so she doth, even lead us madly over all; over the Law, and over the Gospel; over the Threaten of God; and the wrath of God, upon the point of the sword, upon death itself. But yet, presumption is a deordination of Hope, rather a brutish temerity, a wilful rashness; then Hope, and moves contrary to her. Hope lays hold on the promises; but 'tis the condition that stretcheth forth her hand: she looks up to Heaven, but 'tis this Turn, 'tis Repentance, that quickeneth her eye. But presumption runs hastily to the promises; but leapeth over the condition, or treadeth it under her feet. Presumption is in Heaven already, without grace; without Repentance; without a Turn, or at best it is serotina latewards, in the evening, in the shutting up of our days, or ficta, a formal repentance, or manca, a lame, imperfect Repentance; a false hope it is, and therefore most contrary to Hope; and therefore no Hope at all.  
Now, this sudden, and vehement call, should have more force and energy with it, then to awake, and startle us, then to make us, for a while look about. It was so loud, to hasten our repentance, to give it a true being, and essence, & to complete, perfect, and settle it for ever. Our Repentance is our Sacrifice, and it must be 1. matutinum sacrificium, our morning, early Sacrifice. 2. Vivum, a living Sacrifice, breathing forth piety and holiness; not a dead carcase, or the picture of Repentance; and 3. integrum a Sacrifice without blemish, perfect in every part, and it must be, in the last place juge sacrificium a continued sacrifice; a Repentance never to be repent of, a turn never to turn, or look back again.  
The First.  

The first matutinum Sacrificium. An early Sacrifice. Sen ep. 7.  There is a time for all things under the Sun, saith the wiseman, and it is a great part of wisdom, occasionem observare properantem to watch, and observe a fair opportunity, and not to let it slip away between our fingers, to hoist up our sails dum ventus operam dat, 
Hier. ad Celantiam. Isai. 5.7.  as he in Plautus speaks, whilst the wind sits right to fill them; and as it is in civil actions, so is it in our turn, in our repentance, if we observe not the wind: if we turn not with the wind, with the first opportunity; we set out too late; when another will come towards us, is most uncertain; the next wind cannot be so kind, and favourable. We confess, 
Nullus cunctationis locus est in eo consilio, qued non potest laudari nisi peractum. Otho apud Tac. l. 11. Hist.  advise and consultation in other things is very necessary; but full of danger in that action, where all the danger is not to do it. Before we enter upon action, to sit down, and cast with myself, what may follow at the very heels of it, to look upon it, to handle and weigh it, to see whethere life or death will be the issue of it; is the greatest part of our spiritual wisdom: but after sin to demur, when we are running on in our evil ways to consult, what time will be best to turn in; what opportunity we shall take to repent, betrays our ignorance, that when time is we know it not, or our sloth, that though we see the very nunc, the very time of turning, though opportunity even bespeaks us to turn, yet we carelessly let it fly from us, even out of our reach, and will not lay hold on it. Thus saith Solomon, the desire of the slothful slayeth him: he desires, 
Prov. 21.25.  but doth nothing to accomplish his desire; and so he desires to be rich, and dies poor; he thinks his ambition will make him great, his covetousness, rich; his hope, happy; that all things will fall into his lap, sedendo, & votis, by sitting still and wishing for them: and this keeps his hands within his bosom: not so much his sloth, as his desire kills him. Turn ye, turn ye; the very sound of it, might put us in fear, that now were too late; that the present time were not soon enough; but the present is too soon with us, we will turn, we will find a convenient time, all our turning is in desire; desire delays our turn; and delay multiplies itself to our destruction.  
We will then enforce this duty, 1. From the advantage, and benefit we may reap from our strict observing of opportunity. 2. from the danger of delay.  
And first opportunitas à portu, saith Festus, Opportunity hath its denomination from the word, which signifies a haven; I may say, 
Festus verbo Opportune dicitu● ab e●, quod navigantibus maximè u●iles, optatique sint portus.  opportunity is a Haven, we see, they who are tossed up and down on the deep, make all means, stretch their endeavours to the farthest, to thrust their turn, and weather-beat vessel into the Haven, where they would be; quam optati portus? how welcome is the very sight of it? littus Naufragis, the shore for shipwrecked persons, what can they wish for more? Behold, saith the Apostle, 
2 Cor. 6.2.  now is the accepted time; now is the day of Salvation: here is a Haven, and the Tide is now: Now put in your broken vessel: now thrust in into the Haven, opportunity is a prosperous gale, delay is a contrary wind, and will drive you back again upon the rocks, and dash you to pieces. And indeed a strange thing it is: that in all other things opportunity should be a Haven, but in this, which concerns us more than any thing, a Rock. The twilight for the Adulterer: Isaac's funeral for Esau's murder, Felix his convenient time, for a bribe: and to opportunity they fly, tanquam ad portum, as to a Haven: the Adulterer waits for it, Esau wished for it; Faelix sought for it; what should I say? Opportunity works Miracles; fills the hands with good things; Raiseth the poor out of the Dung; defeateth Counsels, conquers Kingdoms; is the best Physician, and doth more than Art can do; and without it Art can do nothing; is the best Politician, and without it Wisdom can do nothing; is the best Soldier; for without it, Power can do nothing; It is all in all, in every thing: but in our Spiritual Polity, and warfare, it hath not strength enough, to Turn us about, it is not able to bow our knee, or move our Tongue, much less to rend a heart: but such is our extremity of folly, such is the hardness of our hearts, Ipsa opportunitas, & fit impietatis patrocinium, one opportunity raises in us a hope of another; makes us waste our time in the ways of Evil, which should be spent in our Return; extends our hopes, from day to day, from year to year, from one hour to another, even till our last minute, till Time flies from us, and opportunity with it: till our last sand, and when that is run out, there is no more Time for us; and so no more opportunity. The voice of Opportunity is, To day, now, if you will hear his voice, harden not your Hearts; this is his voice: Now; 'tis true; but there may be more nows then this, (and it is, but, There may be) to morrow may yield an opportunity: Thus we corrupt her language; In my youth 'tis true, but I may recover it in my riper Age, my feeble Age will have strength enough to Turn me, or I may Turn in my bed, when I am not able to Turn myself; Now? there be more Nows, then Now; what need such haste? my last prayer, my last Breath, my last gasp may be a Turn.  
Now this our way uttereth our Foolishness; for what greater folly can there be, then, when Grace and Mercy, when Heaven is offered; now to refuse it? 
Plutar. in vita Pelopidae.  〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, let sin devour the opportunity, and to morrow we will Turn, is a speech, that ill becomes a mortals mouth, whose breath is in his Nostrils, for it may be his last. His age is but a span long; but a hand-breadth, pro nihilo, as nothing in respect of God; the Septuagint renders it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Tertullian, Nullificamina, others, Nihilitudines or, Nihilietates, which is, Nothings, and in such a Nothing, shall I let slip that opportunity, which may make me something, even eternal? Shall I make so many removes? so many delays within the compass of a Span? whatsoever my span, my nothing may be, my opportunity is not extended beyond this span, is no larger than this nothing: And here is the Danger; whether this Span be now at an end, and measure out, I cannot tell: My span may be but a finger's breadth; my age but a minute; That which I fill up with so many Nows, so many opportunities, Nothing; and than if I turn not Now, I am turned into Hell, where I can never Turn; care not then for the morrow, let the morrow care for itself; There is no Time to Turn from thy Evil ways, but now.  

2. The Danger of Delay.  And First; It is the greatest folly in the World thus to play with danger, To seek Death first, in the Errors of ourlife, and then when we have run out our Course, when Death is ready to devour us, to look faintly back upon light: For the Endeavours of a man, that hath wearied himself in sin, can be but weak and faint, like the Appetite of a dying man, who can but think of meat, and loathe it: The later we Turn, the less able we be to Turn; the further we stray, the less willing shall we be to look back: For sin gathers strength by delay; devotes us unto itself; gains a dominion Over us; holds us as it were in Chains, and will not soon suffer us, to slip out of its power: when the will hath captivated itself under sin; a wish, a sigh, a Thought is but a vain thing, nor have they strength enough to deliver us. One Act begets another, and that a Third; many make up a habit, and evil Habits hold us back with some violence: What mind? what motion? what Inclination can a man that is drowned in sensuality, have to God, who is a Spirit? A man that is buried in the Earth (for so every Covetous man is) to God, who sitteth in the highest heavens? He that delights in the breath of Fools, to the Honour of a Saint? Here the further we go; the more we are In; That which is done once, hath some affinity to that which is done often, and that which is done always, 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. 1. Rhet. c. 11.  saith Aristotle, when an arm or Limb is broke, it may have any motion, but that which was natural to it, and if we do not speedily proceed to cure, it will be a more difficult 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, to set it in its right place again, that it may perform its natural functions: now in sin, there is a deordination of the will, there is a luxation of that faculty; hence weakness seizeth upon the will, and if we neglect the first opportunity; if we do not rectify her betimes, and turn her back again, and bend her to the rule, it will be more and more enfeebled every day; move more irregularly, and like a disordered clock, point to any figure, but that which should show the Hour, and make known the time of the day. We may read this truth in Aged men, saith Saint Basil, 
Orat. ad Ditescentes.  when their body is worn out with Age, and there is a general declination of their strength and vigour; the mind hath a malignant influence on the body, as the body (in their blood, and youth) had upon the mind, and being made wanton, and bold with the Custom of sin, heightens, and inflames their frozen, and decayed parts, to the pursuit of pleasures past; though they can never overtake them, nor see them but in effigy in their Image or Picture, which they draw themselves. They now call to mind the sins of their youth with delight; and act them over again, when they cannot Act them; as youthful, as when they first committed them. They have milk (they think) in their Breasts, and marrow in their bones; they periwigg their Age with wanton behaviour: Their Age is Threescore and Ten; when their speech and will is but Twenty: They boast of what they cannot Act, and would be more sinful, if they could; and are so, because they would. It is a sad contemplation, how we startled at sin in our youth, and how we ventured by degrees, and engaged ourselves: how fearful we were at first; how indifferent afterwards; how familiar within a while; and then how we were settled, and hardened in it at the last; what a Devil sin was, and what a Saint it is become? What a Serpent it was, and how now we play with it? we usually say, 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Arist. Ibid.  Custom is a second Nature; and indeed it follows, and imitates natural motion; It is weak in the beginning, stronger in the Progress, but most strong and violent towards the end: Transit in violentiam voluntas antiqua; That which we will often, we will with eagerness, and violence. Our first onset in sin, is with fear and Reluctation; we then venture further, and proceed with less regret; we move forwards with delight; Delight continues the motion, and makes it customary; and Custom at last drives and binds us to it, as to our Centre; vitia insolentiora renascuntur, saith Seneca: Sin grows more insolent by degrees, first flatters, then commands, after enslaves, and then betrays us: First gains consent, afterwards works delight, at last 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a shamelesness in sin; 
Jere. 6.15.  Were they ashamed? They were not ashamed: nay, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, 
Nihil magis in naturâ suâ laudare se dicebat, quam, ut ip sius verbo utar, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Suet. Caligula.  a senselessness and stupidity in sin; and Caligula's 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a stubbornness; and perverseness of disposition, which will not let us Turn from sin. For by neglecting a timely remedy, vitia, mores fiunt, Our evil ways become our manners, and common deportment, and we look upon them, as upon that which becomes us, upon an unlawful Act, as upon that, which we ought to do: Nay, peccatum lex, sin, which is the Transgression of the Law, is made a Law itself. Saint Austin in his Confessions calls it so, Lex peccati est violentia consuetudinis. That Law of sin, which carries us with that violence to sin, is nothing else, but the force of long Custom and Continuance in sin. For sin by Custom gains a Kingdom in our souls, and having taken her seat and Throne there, 
Lex alia in membris meis repugnavit legi menti●… 〈◊〉, & Rom● Lex n. peccati est violentia consuetudinis, quâ trahitur & tenetur etiam invitus animus, eo merito, quo in eam volens illabitur. Aug. l. 8. Confess c. 5.  promulges Laws: If she say Go, we go; and if she say, Do this, we do it: Surge, inquit, Avaritia, she commands the Miser to rise up early, and lie down late, and eat the bread of sorrow; she sets the Adulterer on fire, makes him vile, and base in his own eyes; whilst he counts it his greatest honour and preferrment, to be a slave to his Strumpet. She draws the Revengers sword; she feeds the intemperate with poison; And she commands, not as a Tyrant, but having gained Dominion over us, she finds us willing subjects; she Holds us Captive, and we call our Captivity our liberty: Her poison is as the poison of the Aspic; she bites us, and we smile, and Die, and Feel it not.  

2. The danger of delay in respect of God.  Secondly: It is dangerous in respect of God himself, whose call we regard not, whose counsels we reject, whose patience we dally with: whose Judgements we slight: to whom we wantonly turn the back, when he calls after us, to seek his face, and so tread that mercy under foot, which should save us: and will not turn yet, upon a bold and strange presumption, that though we grieve his spirit; though we resist, and blaspheme his spirit: yet after all these Scorns, and contempts: after all these injuries, and contumelies, he will yet look after us, and sue unto us, and offer himself, and meet and receive us, at any time, we shall point out, as most convenient to turn in.  
It is most true: God hath declared himself, and as it were became his own Herald, and proclaimed it to all the world, 
Exod. 34.6,7.  the Lord, Merciful, and Gracious, and abundant in Goodness, and Truth, keeping Mercy for Thousands: for he is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 most lovingly affected to man, the chief, and Prince of his creatures: he longs after him, he woos him, he waits on him: His Glory and man's Salvation meet and kiss each other: for it is his Glory to crown him: Nor doth he at any time turn from us himself, till we  on the world, and sensuality, and divorce him from us, till we have made our Heaven below; chosen other gods, which we make ourselves, and think him not worth the turning to. He is always a God at hand, never goes from us, till we source him away by violence. How many murmur and rebellions? how many contradictions of sinners, hath he stood out, and yet looked towards them? how hath he been pressed, as a Cart under sheaves, 
Amos 2.13.  and yet looked towards them? how hath he been shaken off and defied, and yet looked towards them? he receives David after his Adustery, and murder, after that complication of sins, the least of which, was of force enough, to cast him out of God's presence for ever; he receives Peter after his denial, and would have received Judas, after his Treason; he received Manasses, when he could not live long, and he received the Thief on the Cross, when he could live no longer. All this is true; His Mercy is infinite, and his Mercy is everlasting, and is the same, yesterday, and to day, and for ever; 
Ter. de pudicit. c. 10.  But as Tertullian says well, non potest non irasci contumeliis misericordiae suae, God must needs wax angry at the contumelies and reproaches, which by our dalliance, and delay we fling upon his mercy, which is so ready to cover our sins. For how can he suffer this Queen of his Attributes to be thus prostituted by our lusts, to see men bring sin into the world under the shadow of that Mercy, which should take it away; to see men advance the Kingdom of Darkness, and to fight under the devil's banner with this inscription and motto lifted up, the Lord is merciful? what hope of that Soldier, that flings away his buckler? or that condemned person, that tears his pardon? or that sick man that loves his disease? and counts his Physic poison? and the Prophet here in my Text, where he calls upon us with that earnestness, Turn ye, turn ye, gives us a fair intimation, that if we thus delay, and delay, and never begin, a time may come, when we shall not be able to turn. It may seem indeed, a harsh, and hard saying, a Doctrine not suitable with the lenity and gentleness of the Gospel (which breathes nothing but mercy) to conclude; that such a time may come, that any part of time, that the last moment of our time may not make, a now to turn in: that whilst we breathe, our condition should be as desperate, as if we were dead; that whilst we are men, our estate should be as irrevocable, as that of the damned spirits, with this difference only, that we are not yet in the place of torment, which nevertheless is prepared for us, and will as certainly receive us, as it doth now the Devil, and his Angels. It is harsh indeed, but may be very profitable, and advantageous for us so to think; that such a time may be, which may be our last; for grace, though not our last for life, that we may live, and yet be dead eternally; a time, 
Heb. 10.26.  when there will remain no more sacrifice for sin. I cannot say, we should make it an article of our Creed, and yet I know no danger in believing it; and it may prove fatal to us to disbeleeve it, or look upon it, as such an error, which deserves to be placed in the Catalogue of Heresies. And therefore though you subscribe not, yet there is no reason, you should Anathematise it; because we may find some parts of Scripture, which look this way, and so far seem to enforce it, that we have rather reason to fear, that there may be some truth in it; since our wilful delays are but as the degrees to it, as the ready way to that gulf, out of which it will be impossible to lift up ourselves; at least impossible in the Lawyer's sense; impossible, as those things which may be, but seldom come to pass; It is a part of wisdom to fear the worst, nor can we be too scrupulous in the business of our Salvation.  
In the 15. of Genesis, and the 16. v. God tells Abraham, that he will judge the Amorites; but he will stay to the fourth generation, till their iniquity be full, and when it is full, than he will strike. At 23. of Matt. Our Saviour thus bespeaks the Pharisees. v. 23. Fill you up the measure of your forefathers, which is not a command, but a prediction, that they should fill up the measure of their sin, and then be ripe for punishment. For when men have run out the full length of their line, than it is God's time to draw it in, and give them a check; to pull them on their backs, there to be buried in ruin for ever. When our Saviour beheld Jerusalem, the Text tells us, he wept over it, wept over it, as at its funeral, as if he now saw the enemy cast a trench round about it, as if he saw it, 
Luk. 29.43.  lie level with the ground. Will you hear this Epicedium, or his Funeral speech, which he uttered with great passion, and tears running down his cheeks? Oh that thou hadst known the things that belong to thy peace, in hac die tuâ, even in this thy day; A day, than they had, but when this day was shut in, then follows, nunc autem but now, they are hid from thine eyes, which ushers in that blackness of darkness for ever. Oh that thou hadst, then was liberty of choice, but Now, thou art bound and fettered under a sad impossibility for ever. And that we may be thus bound hand and foot, before we be cast into utter darkness, Saint Paul doth more than intimate, when he tells us of the Gentiles. Rom. 1. That as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge; to retain him as a merciful God, retain his love and favour, by the true worship of him, he also gave them over, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, to a reprobate mind; he left them in that gall of bitterness, in which they delighted, tradidit repletos, non replendos, 
Isid. Pelus l. 4. ep. 102  saith the father, he gave them over not be filled, but being filled already with all iniquity, he delivered them over to a reprobate mind: they retained not God in any part of their time, and now that is run out, is at an end; and that time will be no more; they would be evil, and now they cannot be good. The Jewish Doctors had a proverb, that God did but in this his proceeding farinam jam molitam molere, but do that, which was done already, to his hands, grind that corn that was ground already, and leave them, who would be left to themselves, and their own hellish wickedness, which was their ruin. For that of Basil is most true, 
Bas. Hom. 22. c. 11.  〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Judgement follows mercy at the heels, to take revenge upon those, who wantonly abuse her; strikes them dead, who would not live, and seals them up to damnation, who were condemned already. You may now Turn, and he will receive you; that's the dialect of mercy, but you shall not, if you thus put it off from time to time, that's the voice of an angry and despised God; Oh that thou hadst known in this thy day; see Mercy gave her a day, and shined brightly in it, by which light she might have seen the things that concerned her peace? nunc autem, but now, now it is past: are as the black lines of reprobation, drawn out by the hand of Justice: It was thy day, but now it is shut up, and now nox est perpetuo una dormienda, thy Sun is set for ever: all is night, eternal night; the light is hid from thine eyes, and thou shalt never see it more.  
You will say, this was spoken to a People, to a Nation; 'tis true: but may it not also be so with every particular person? may it not be so, with one Pharisee? with one viper, as well as with a generation? was it not so with Judas, as well as with Jerusalem? I have read that a Body or a Society, that a Commonwealth may fall under a censure, and be subject unto penalty: yet bodies do not offend, but in their parts; 'tis not Rome that commits the fault, but Sempronius or Titius, who are parts of that Commonwealth. Not the Amorites alone: Not the sect of the Pharisees; not Jerusalem alone, but every man may have Diem suam his allotted time, in which he may turn from his evil ways; and this day may be a Feast-day, or a day of trouble, it may beget an eternal day, or it may end in the shadow of death, and everlasting darkness. Oh that men were wise, but so wise as the creatures which have no reason; so wise, as to know their seasons, to discover hanc diem suam, this their day, wherein they may yet turn: that we could but behold that Decretory hour, or but place it in our thoughts, or make it our fear, that such a one there may be, in which Mercy shall forsake us, and Justice cut off our hopes for ever: Certainly we should not make so many Days in our year, we should not resolve to day, for to morrow, and to morrow for the next, and so drive it forward, till the last sand, till we can resolve no more. For he that thinks so lightly of eternity, to think it may be wrought out in a moment, and yet will not allow it so much; but when he please, hath just cause to fear, that his day is passed already.  
Now though there may be such a day, such a moment; yet this day, this moment, like the day of judgement, is not known to any, and it may seem on purpose to be removed out of our sight, that we may be jealous of every moment of our life, and when the devil tempts, the World flatters, the flesh rebels, set up this thought against them, that this may be our last moment, and if we yield now, we shall be slaves for ever. For as the long suffering of God is Salvation, the second of Pet. 3.15. so is every day, every hour of our life, such a day, and such an hour, which carries along with it eternity, 
Sen. de benef. 2.5.  either of pain, or Bliss. That thou mayest therefore turn now, think that a time may come, when thou shalt not be able to turn, tardè velle nolentis est, not to be willing to turn to thy God now, is to deny him, delay is no better than defiance. And why shouldest thou hope to be willing hereafter, whoart not willing now; and art not willing now, upon this false, deceitful hope, that thou shalt be willing hereafter? Wilful and present folly is no good presage of after-wisdom, and it is more probable that a froward will, will be more froward and perverse, then that after it hat joined with the vanities of this world, and cleaved fast unto them, it should bow, and bend itself, to that Law, which makes it death to touch them. He that leaps into the pit, upon hope, that he shall get out, hath leapt into his Grave, at least deserves to be covered over with darkness, and to buried there for ever.  
Fear then, lest the measure of thy Iniquity be almost full; and persuade thyself, thy next sin may fill it; Think, this is thy Day, thy hour, Thy moment, and though peradventure it may not be; yet think it may be thy last; It is no error, though it be an error; For if it be not thy last, yet in Justice God might make it so: for why should Heaven be offered more than once? and if it be an Error, It is an happy Error, and will redeem us from all those Errors, which delay brings in, and multiplies: even those Errors, which make us worse than the Beasts that perish: A happy error; I may say an Angel, that lays hold on us, and snaches us out of the fire, out of the common ruin, and hastens us to our God: A happy Error, which frees us from all other errors of our life. And yet, though it may be an error (for it is no more, Than it may be) it is a truth; for only Now is true; there may be many more Nows, 'tis true; a now to morrow, and a now hereafter, and a now on our deathbed, but these are but may-bees, and these potential Truths concern us not (for that which may be, may not be: that which concerns us, is an Everlasting Truth, To day, if you will hear his voice, harden not your hearts, if you harden them to day, and stand upon May-bees, than they may be stand for ever.  
And therefore, if you expect I should point out to a certain time; The time is now, Turn ye, Turn ye, even now; now the Prophet speaks; now the words sound in your ears; Now, if you will hear his voice, harden not your hearts. For why was it spoken, but that we should hear it? It is an earnest call after us, and if we obey not, it is an Argument against us, That we deserve to hear it no more. We are willing that what we speak, should stand; not a word, not a syllable, not one tittle must fall to the ground. If we speak to our servant, and say Go, he must go; and if we say, do this, he must do it nunc, Now, dicto citiùs, as soon as it is spoke. A deliberative pausing Obedience, Obedience in the Future Tense, to say, he will do it, when he pleases, strips him of his Livery, and Thrusts him out of doors. And shall man, who is Dust and Ashes, seek a convenient time to Turn from his Evil ways? shall our now be when we please? shall one morrow Thrust on another, and that a Third? shall we demur and delay, till we are ready to be thrust into our graves, or which will follow, into Hell? if the Lord says, Turn ye, Turn ye, there can be no other time, no other now, but now. All other nows and opportunities, as our days, are in his hands, and he may close, and shut them up, if he please, and not open them to give thee another, Domini, non servi negotium agitur, the business is the Lords, and not the servants, and yet the business is ours too; but the Time is in his Hands, and not in ours.  
Now then Turn ye, now the word sounds, and Echoes in your ears. Again, now; now thou hast any good Thought, any Thought, that hath any relish of Salvation: For that thought, if it be not the voice, 
Deus ad homines, imoquod proprius est in homines venit. Sen. Ep. 73. Job 33.16.  is the whisper of the Lord, but it speaks as plain, as his Thunder. If it be a good thought, it is from him who is the fountain of all good, and he speaks to thee, by it, as he did to the Prophets by Visions and Dreams. In a Dream, in a Vision of the Night, I may say, In a Thought, he openeth the ears of men, and sealeth their Instruction. And why should he speak once and twice, and we perceive it not? why should the Devil, who seeeks to devour us, prevail with us more, than our God, that would save us? why should an evil thought arise in our hearts, and swell, and grow, and be powerful to roll the Eye, to lift up the head? to stretch out the Hand? to make our feet, like Hinds feet in the ways of Death? and a holy Thought, a good intention, which is, as it were, the breath of the Lord, be stopped, and checked, and slighted, and at last be chased away into the land of Oblivion? why should a good thought arise, and vanish, and leave no impression behind it? and an evil thought increase and multiply, shake the powers of the Soul, command the will, and every faculty of the mind; every part of the body, and at last bring forth a Cain and Esau, a Herod, a Pharisee, a profane Person, an Adulterer, a Murderer? why should we so soon divest ourselves of the one, and morari, stay, and dwell, and fool it in the other? sport ourselves, as in a place of pleasure, a Seraglio, a Paradise? For, let us but give the same friendly Entertainment to the Good, as we do to the bad; let us but as joyfully embrace the one, as we do the other; let us be as speculative men in the ways of God, as we are in our own, and then we shall make Hast, and not delay to Turn unto him. We talk much of the Grace of God, and we do but talk of it: It is in all mouths; in some it is but a sound; in others it is scarce sense, in most it is but a loud, but faint acknowledgement of its power, when it hath no power at all to move us; an acknowledgement of what God can do, when we are resolved he shall work nothing in us; we commend it, and resist it; pray for it, and refuse it. Behold the Grace of God hath appeared to all men: appeared in the Doctrine of the Gospel; and appears in those good Thoughts, which are the proper Issue of t hat doctrine, and are begot by this word of Truth; and when the heart sends them forth, she sends them as Messengers of Grace, to invite us, and draw us out of our evil ways: and if the Devil can raise such a Babel upon an evil Thought; why may not God raise up a Temple unto himself upon a Good?  
I appeal to yourselves, and shall desire you to ask yourselves the question. How often have you enjoyed such Gracious ravishing thoughts? How often have you felt the good motions of the Spirit? How oft have you heard a voice behind you, say, Do this? how many checques? how many inward Rebukes have you had in your Evil ways? how oft have these thoughts followed, and pursued you in the ways of Evil, and made them less pleasing? what a damp have they cast upon your delight? what a Thorn have they been in your flesh, even when it was wanton? How oft are you so composed, and byassed by these Heavenly Insinuations, that heart and hand are ready to join together, as partners in the Turn? How oft would you, and yet will not Turn? How oft are you the Preachers, and tell yourselves, Vanity of Vanity, all is Vanity, and that there is no true rest, but in God? I speak to those, who have any feeling and presage of a future Estate; any Taste of the Powers of the world to come (for too many we see have not; I speak this to our shame) Now is the Time; Now is the Now.  
— nunc, nunc properandus & acri,  
Fingendus sine fine rotâ—  
Now thou must turn the wheel about, and frame and fashion thyself into a vessel of Honour, consecrate unto the Lord; makeup a Child of God, the new Creature: Now nourish, and make much of these good Motions, good inclinations, wrought in us either by the Word of God; or the rod of God; They are fallen upon us, and entered into us, but how long they will stay, how long we shall enjoy them we cannot tell; a smile from the World; a Dart from Satan, if we take not heed, if we be not tender of them, may chase them away. This is the time, this is the Now; for at another time, being fallen from this Heaven, our Cogitations may be from the earth, earthly, such gross, and dirty thoughts, which will not melt, but harden in the Sun. Our Faculties may be corrupt; our Understandings dull and heavy, our wills froward and perverse; that we shall neither will that which is Good, or so will it, that we shall not have strength to bring forth, not be able to draw it into Act; If we approve, or look towards it, we shall soon start back, as from an Enemy, as from that which suits not with our present disposition, but is distasteful to it; tanquam fas non sit, as if it were some unlawful thing, as we read of the Sybarite, who was grown so extremely dainty, that he would fall into a cold sweat, and faint at another man's labour. Now, therefore, Now let us close with it, whilst it appears in Beauty, whilst it is amiable in our eyes, whilst our will gins to bend, and our heart inclines to it; for if we let this so fair an opportunity to pass, within a while Vanity itself will appear in Glory, and that Holiness (which should make us like unto God) will be taken for a monster; There will be Honey on the Harlot's lips, and gall on Chastity; a Lordship shall be more , than Paradise; and three lives in that, than eternity in Heaven; now God is God, and if we do not Now fall down and worship him; the next Now, Baal will be God, The world will be our God, and the True God, which but now we acknowledged, will not be in all our ways. The first now, the first opportunity is the best; the next is most uncertain, the next, may be Never.  
But now, 
Turn now: Sole puro: in Times of Peace.  if we will stand to distinguish times by the events, as by their several faces; the divers complexions they receive, either from Peace or Trouble, either from Prosperity, or Adversity; Then certainly, the best Time to Turn to him, is when he turns his face to us, Cum candidi fulgent soles, when he shines brightly upon our Tabernacles; when God speaks to us, not out of the Whirr wind, but in a still voice: when Plenty crownes the Commonwealth, and Peace shadows it; when God appears to us, not as Jupiter to Semele, in Thunder, but as to Danae, in a shower of Gold; whilst he stands as it were at the Door, and entreats entrance, and not stay till he knock with the hammer, till he break in upon us with his sword; because to Turn to him now in this Brightness, will rather be an Act of our love, than our fear, and so make our Repentance a  Offering, a Sacrifice of a Sweet smelling Savour unto God; and make it evident, that we understand the Voice of his calling; the language of his Benefits; the miracle, which he works, which is to cure our inward blindness with this Clay, with these outward Things, that we may see, to Turn from our evil ways, unto the Lord. This is truly to praise the Lord for all his Benefits; this is truly to Honour him; to bear ourselves with that Fear, and Reverence, that we leave off to offend this God of Blessings. Negat beneficium, qui non Honorat, he denies, he despiseth a Blessing, that doth not thus Honour it: Ingratitude is contumelious to God; is the bane of merit, the defacer of goodness: The Sepulchre, the Hell of all Blessings; for by it they are turned into a Curse; Ingratitude loathes the light, loathes the Land of Canaan, and looks for Milk and honey in Egypt. And this is it which the Prophets every where complain of, that the People did enjoy the light of God's Countenance, but by it walked on in their evil ways, and made no other use of it, than this; That they did per tantorum honorum detrimenta Deum contemnere, as Hierome speaks, lose the Favour of God, in their contempt, and were made worse by that which should have Turned them from being Evil; that being his pleasant plant, they brought forth nothing but wild Grapes.  
And to apply this to ourselves; Dare we now look back to the former times? what face can turn that way, and not gather blackness? God gave us light, and we shut our eyes against it. God made us the envy, and we were ambitious to make ourselves, the scorn of all Nations; he gave us milk and honey, and we turned it into Gall and Bitterness: God gave us Plenty, and Peace; and the one we loathed, as the Jews did their Manna; the other we abused: our Peace brought forth a War, as Nicippus sheep, in Aelian did yean a Lion. God spoke to us by Peace, and we were in Trouble, till we were in Trouble, till we were in a Posture of War: God spoke to us by Plenty, and we answered him by luxury: God spoke to us by love, and we answered him by Oppression: He made our faces to shine, and we grinded the poor; He spoke to us in a still voice, and we defied the Holy One of Israel. Every benefit of his cried, Give me my price, and lo, in stead of Turning from our evil ways, delighting in them; in stead of leaving them, defending them; In stead of calling upon his Name, calling it down to countenance all the Imaginations of our Heart, which have been evil continually; This was the Goodly price that he, and all his Blessings were prized at; and then, when this light was thus abused; our Sun did set, our day was shut in: That Now, That Then had its end; The next call was in Thunder, and he gave us Hail for rain, and fla●… fire in our Land.  
But such a then, such an opportunity we had, and we may say with shame, and sorrow enough, that we have lost it; but since we have let slip this time of peace, this acceptable time, yet at least, let us turn now in the storm, that he may make a calm; turn to him in our trouble, that he may bring us out of our distress; turn now, when our Sun is darkened, and our Moon turned into blood, when the knowledge of his Law, of true Piety gins to wax dim, and the true face, and beauty of Religion to whither. When the stars are fallen from Heaven, the teachers of truth, from the Profession of truth, and set that up for truth, which sets them up in high-places: when the powers of Heaven are shaken, when the pillars of the Church sink, and break asunder into so many Sects and divisions, which is as music to Rome, but makes all walk as mourners about the streets of Jerusalem; when Religion, which should be the bond of love, is made the title and pretence of war, the somentor of that malice, and bitterness, which desiles it, and puts it to shame, and treads it under foot; Now when the Sea and the waves thereof roar, when we hear the noise and tumult of the people, which is as the raging of the Sea, but ebbing and flowing with more uncertainty, and from a cause less known; Now in this draught and resemblance of the end of the World: when he thus speaks to us in the whirlwind, when he thus knocks with his hammer, when he calls thus loud unto us, turn ye, turn ye, now let us bow down our heads, and in all humility answer him; Ecce accedimus, Behold we come unto thee; For thou art our Lord and God. For, as our Saviour speaks of offences: so may we of these Judgements and Terrors, which he sends to fright us to him: Necesse est ut veniant, It must needs be that they come not only necessitate consequentiae by a necessity of consequence, supposing the condition of our nature, and the changes, and chances of a sinful world; or rather supposing the corruption of men's manners, which can produce nothing but tumult and sedition, but plagues and famine, and war, (for what other fruit can grow upon such evil trees?) but necessitate finis, in respect of the end, for which they are sent; for which God, in whose power both men, and their actions are, doth not only, not hinder them by his mighty hand, but permits them, and by a kind of providence sends them upon us, partly for our trial, but especially for our amendment; that finding Gall, and wormwood upon every pleasure, and vanity of the world; finding no rest for our feet in these tumultuous waves, we may flee to the Ark, and turn to him, with our whole heart. And certainly, if they work not this effect, they will a far worse; if they do not set a period to our sin, they are then but the beginnings of sorrow, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Naz. but a prologue to that long and lasting Tragedy, the sad Types, and sorerunners of everlasting torments in the bottomless pit. As yet, they may be but an argument of God's love; the blows of a Father 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, as Basil calls them, 
Basil in 10. Esai. Tert. de patiented. 11.  blows to turn us out of our evil ways; Oh soelicem servum cujus emendationi instat Dominus, cui dignatur irasci, saith Tert. Oh happy servant, whom God takes such care to amend, whom he thus digs about, and waters with his discipline of Affliction, whom he thus purgeth, that he may bring forth fruits meet for repentance; whom he loves so well, as to be angry with him, to whom he gives this great Honour and respect, as to chastise him; quem admonendi dissimulatione non decipit, 
Ibid.  whom he thus plainly tells of his sin and danger, and writes and imprints it, as it were, in his very Flesh; whom he doth not in his Anger Dissemble with, and Deceive; that is, whom he lets not alone, that he may ruin himself, seems to favour, that he may destroy him; not Toucheth, that he may grind him to pieces: Nam quanta est poena, nulla poena? not to be punished at all, is the greatest punishment of all; and nothing is more deplorable, than the happiness of a wicked man; for when God is silent, and will speak no more, than he hath his Axe in his hand, to cut us Down, that we shall bear no more fruit.  
And such a Now, such a Time there may come; when God hath called again and again, when he hath spoken to us, and spoken within us; when he hath spoken to us from his Mercy-seat, and spoken in Thunder, that he will speak no more; and this no doubt hath befallen many Thousands, whom God in Justice delivered to these chains of Darkness, to be reserved to Judgement; whom he would not frown upon, whom he would not look upon on, whom he would not Trouble, whose eyes he would not open; to see the danger they were in; but as they colluded, and Trifled with him, so he laughed at their folly and madness, and left them to themselves to run on with pleasure, with Hope, with confidence untouched, unrebuked, unregarded to their Destruction. All that are lost, are not in Hell, for they that are now there, were lost before, vivi, videntesque, even whilst they walked in the land of the Living; lost, when they were called upon, and would not hear; Lost in the midst of Prophets and Apostles; Lost in the Church; Lost in the Mercies of God, which they rejected; Lost in the Judgements of God, which they slighted; Lost before they were utterly lost; Lost when they left God; and when God left them; Judas had his Name, before he hanged himself, and before he went to his place, was the son of Perdition. It may seem strange indeed, but it is True, and there is no reason it should seem strange; for why should it seem strange, That God should leave us once, who have left him so often; That when he can do no more to his Vineyard, he should pluck up the hedge, and lay it open to bring forth nothing but Briars and Thorns: That when we have Abused his Mercy, he should be angry? That when we Defy him, he should fling us off; that when we will be evil, he should let us alone. It is our own folly, that makes it a Paxadox; our Ignorance of ourselves, and our God; Our High, and vile esteem we have of his Mercy; Our false glozing, and misinterpreting his Judgements? these have made it a Heresy, have Anathematised, and exploded it; and now, any Now, any Time is soon enough with them, who will sinne, but would not be punished; who put God from them, but would not be left to themselves; who would repent, and yet sin; would be saved, but not Now. These are the Solecisms of Delay, the contradictions and Absurdities of wilful sinrs; and all such who would Turn, yet will go on in their sin. It were easy to fill our mouth with Arguments; but Delay in our on-sets and progress to Eternity, is of so foul and monstrous an aspect, that there need no Tongue of Men or Angels to set forth the horror of it: every Eye that sees it, must needs turn itself away; every thought that receives it, must distaste, and condemn it; even the Heart, that is deceived with it, cannot but tremble at it. Amongst so many that have perished; amongst so many, that may perish by it, it never yet found one Patron, any one man, that had a good word for it, or did dare to say, It were not a sin to trust to it: Even when we Delay, we condemn ourselves, and yet still Hope, and still Delay; we condemn it in others, and of those who have been long evil, we are too ready to say, They will never be good. He that hearkens to the call, and Turns at the first sound of it, condemns it, for he flings it off, as if Death were in it; He that expects an hour, when the Hour is Now, condemns it, condemns it by his very expectation, condemns it by his fear? for he that doth but hope for such an hour, cannot but entertain some fear that it might never come; and so conclude against himself, that, that opportunity which hath a being, and subsistence, is far better, and to be preferred before that which love of vanity, and his hope hath made up; which is Nothing, but in expectation: thus we delay and check, and comfort ourselves, 
Bern. in Cant. Ser. 75.  and yet delay, and destroy ourselves, and look for Salvation in medio Gehennae saith Bern. in the midst of Hell, which is wrought already, and must be wrought out by us in medio terrae in the midst of the earth.  
For Conclusion then; Turn ye, Turn ye, That is, Turn ye Now: There is but one Now; There may be many more: but most True it is; 
Hom. 41.  There is but One. Tene quod certum, Dimitte, quod incertum, saith Austin: let us lay hold on that which is certainly ours, let us not send our Thoughts, and hopes afar off, to that which hath no better foundation to rest on, than uncertainty itself; let us not hope to raise Eternity upon a Thought of that which may be, or rather of that, which may not be; For we may as well consult and determine what we will do when we are dead, as what we will do in this kind, Hereaster; and if it be never wrought out of its contingency; if it never come to pass, the difference is not great; For that which may be, 
Arestot. de interp. c. 9  and that which never shall be, may be the same. That which may be, and may not be, hath no Entity at all, and so cannot be the object of our Knowledge, nor bear either an Affirmation, or Negation; and wilt thou settle a Resolution on such a Contingency? Resolve to do that at such a Time, which thou canst not tell, whether it will ever come or no? Resolve upon that, of which thou canst neither affirm, nor deny, that it shall ever be? wilt thou hazard the favour of God, thy soul, and Salvation upon the hope of that, which is not, and may be nothing? This were to let go Juno and embrace a cloud; to set thy happiness on the cast of a die, to call the things that are not, as if they were (but in vain) in brief, to set up an Idol, a false hope, a gilded nothing, and fall down, and worship it, and forsake that present opportunity, which is the voice of God, and bespeaks us to make no more delays, but to turn Now.  
The word now sounds, and let us hearken now: we have been told by him, and we have been told by them, who had it from Christ, as Christ had it from his Father, that now is the acceptable time, now is the day of Salvation, and we were never yet told of any other day. For did ever yet any Prophet or Apostle exhort you to turn to morrow? At what time soever, is not when you please; but though you have not yet lest your evil ways, yet now you may turn. At what time soever, is now. Divinity, or the Doctrine of the Gospel is practical, and considers not contingencies, but necessaries; In it there is nothing presented to us in the futurtense, but Salvation; which is a thing of another world: the means are all derived to us in the present, To day if you will hear his voice; Deny yourselves, take up your Cross; mortify your fleshly lusts to day, believe now, love him now, hope in him now; that which is to come, or may be, in respect of our duty, is not considerable in that science, but left in his hands, who is the Ancient of days; who is eternal, who may indulge as many opportunities, as in wisdom, be shall think fit, 
Dan 7 9  but his command is Now, who may receive us at any time, but binds us to the present.  
We have been told, nay, we can tell ourselves; that now is better than to morrow; that we have but one day, and moment; which we can call ours, and after that, Time may be ●o more: we have heard, that delay is a Tyrant, a Pharaoh, and lays more work upon us, doubles, & trebles, nay, infinitely multiplies our Task, and yet allows, us no straw, withdraws the means; the helps and advantages we had to turn, or else makes us weak and impotent, less able to use them: delivers us over to more difficulties, more pangs, and troubles, and more tormenting Agonies, than we should have felt, if we had cast her off, and begun betimes. And shall we yet delay? we have heard, that it is a sin to delay, and makes sin yet more sinful; that it is the devils first heave, to throw us into that Gulf, out of which we shall have neither power, nor will to come; that it is a leading sin, the forerunner to the sin against the Holy Ghost; which shall never be forgiven; and shall we yet delay? we have been taught, that it is a high presumption to leave Christ working out his part of the covenant in his blood, which was once shed for us, 
Non expectat Deus frigescentes Senectu is annos, nec emortuam jam per consuetudinem vitio rum consuetudinem, vult longi praelij militem. Hilar. in Psal. 118. Beth.  and intercedes for us, for ever, and wilfully to neglect our part, and drive it off, from time to time; from the cheerfulness, and vigour of youth, to the dulness and laziness of old age, to withered hands, & trembling joints, to weak memories, heavy hearts, and dull understandings; to the unactive amazedness; the would but cannot of a bedrid-sinner; then to strive against sin, when we are to struggle with our disease, then to do it, when we can do nothing, and so, when we cannot finish and perfect our Repentance, fill, and make it up in a Though, or Sigh, a faint and sick acknowledgement, which are rather sad Remonstrances against our former neglect and delay, then Infallible Testimonies, or Demonstrative Declarations of a wounded, and Broken Heart. This we have been told, and shall we yet delay? in brief: we have been taught, That Delay, if we cut it not off betimes, will at last cut us out of the Covenant of Grace; That it will make the Gospel, as killing as the Law; The Promises, which are yea, and Amen, Nothing to us; that it will make a Gracious God, a consuming fire, and Jesus a Destroyer: That a dying man can no more Turn to God, than the Dead praise him; That after we have thus scared our Consciences, drawn out our life in a continued disobedience, the Gospel is sealed up, and concerns us not at the hour of Death, who would not lay hold of one hour of our life, to Turn in; and therefore cannot go the same ordinary way to heaven with the Apostles, 
Agens poenitentiam, & reconciliatus cum sanus est, & post à benè viveus securus hinc exit. Agens poenitentiam ad ultimum recenciliatus, si securus hinc exit, ego non sum securus, Aug. Hom. 41.  and Martyrs, and the souls of just men made perfect, with those who have put off the old man, and put on the new, with those who have escaped the pollutions of the world, and were never again entangled in them: but are left to that Mercy which was never promised, and which they have little reason to hope for, who have so much abused it, to their own perdition. All that can be said, is scarce worth their Hearing; Non dico, salvabuntur; non dico, Damnabuntur, we cannot say, they shall be saved: we cannot say, they shall be Damned: They may be safe, but of this we cannot be sure; because we have no Revelation for it, but rather for the contrary, only God is not bound to Rules and Laws, as man is; no, not to his own; but keeps to himself his Supreme right and power entire, and may do what he will with his own, and may take that for a Turn, which he hath not declared to be so; and do that which he hath threatened he will not do: but 'tis ill depending upon what God may do; for (for aught that is revealed) he will never do it, never do it to him, who presumes he will, because he may; and so puts off his Turn, his Repentance to the last, leaves the ordinary way, and trusts to what God may do, out of Course; never do it to a man of Belial, who runs on in his sins, yet looks for such a Chariot, to carry him into Heaven. We have no such Doctrine, nor the Church of Christ; Her voice is, Turn ye now, at Last, will be too late; This is the Doctrine of the Gospel; but yet the Judgement is the Lords. And all this we have heard, and we cannot gainsay, or confute it: and shall we yet delay?  
Certainly if we know these Terrors of the Lord, and not Turn now; we shall hardly ever Turn. If we hear, and believe this, and do not repent, we are worse than Infidels; our Faith shall help the Devil to accuse us, and it shall be easier for Sodom and Gomorrha, then for us; If we hear this, and still fold our hands to sleep, still Delay; if this noise will not stir and move us, if this do not startle us in our evil ways, we have good reason to fear, we shall never awake, till the last Trump; till that day, till the last Day, which is a Day of Judgement, as this our day, is of Repentance.  
We say we believe it; that now heaven is offered, and now we must strive to enter in; we say, we pray for it, we hope for it; we long for it; if we do, Then Now is the Time; Festina fides, Alacris Devotio, spes impigra, 
Amb. Epist. c. 10. Ep. 82.  saith Saint Ambrose, Faith is on the wing, and carries us along, with the speed of a Thought, through all difficulties, through all distastes, and affrightments, and will not let us stay one moment in the house of vanity, in any slippery place, where we may fall, and perish: Devotion is full of Heat, and Activity; and Hope that is deferred is an Affliction. If we are lead by the Spirit of God, 
Devotio est actualis voluntas prompte faciendi quae ad Dei cultum spectant. Aquin. 22. q. 82. Art. 1.  we are lead apace; drawn suddenly out of those ways, which lead unto death; we are called upon to escape for our lives, and not to look behind us, and (as it was said of Cyprian) we are at our journey's end, as soon as we fet out. God speaks, and we hear; he gins good thoughts in us, and we nourish them to that strength, that they break forth into Action; he pours forth his Grace, 
Praeproperâ velocitate pietatis paene ante coepit persectus esse, quam disceret. Pontius Draconus de Cypriani vitâ.  and we receive it; he makes his benefits his lure, and we come to his hand; he thunders from heaven, and we fall down before him. In brief, Repentance is as our Passeover; and by it we sacrifice our heart, and we do it in the Bitterness of our Soul, and we do it in haste; and so pass from Death, to Life, from darkness, to Light, from our evil ways, to the Obedince of Faith: and God passeth over us; sees the blood our wounded Spirits, our Tears, our Contrition, and will not now destroy us; but seeing us so soon, so fare removed from our Evil ways, will favour us, and shine upon us; and in the light of his Countenance we shall walk on from strength to strength, through all the hardship, and Troubles of a continued Race, to that Rest and Peace, which is Everlasting. Thus much of the first property of Repentance; it must be matura Conversio, a speedy, and a present Turn.  
Festina, & haerentis in Salo naviculae funem magis praecide, quam solve.  Hier. Paulino.   

THE EIGHTH SERMON.  

PART FOUR  EZEKIEL 33.11. 
Turn ye, Turn ye from your evil ways. For why, etc.  
TO stand out with God, and contend with him all our life long; to try the utmost of his patience, and then in our Evening, in the shutting up of our Days, to bow before him, is not to Turn: nor have we any reason to conceive any Hope; that a faint Confession, or sigh should deliver him up to Eternity of Bliss, whom the swinge of his lusts, and a multiplied continued disobedience have carried along without checque, or control to his chamber and Bed, and the very mouth of the Grave; who have delighted themselves in evil, till they can do no good: Delay, if it ben ot fatal to all, (for we dare not give Laws to God's Mercy) yet we have just reason to fear; it is so to those that trust to it, and run on in their Evil ways, till the hand of justice is ready to cut their Thread of life, and to set a period to that, and their sins together, Turn ye, Turn ye, that is, now: that it be not too late.  

The second property, or the Sincerity of our Turn.  
This ingemination hath more heat in it, not only to hasten our motion and turn, but to make it true, and real, and sincere; For when God bids us turn, he considers us not, as upon a stage, but in his Church, where every thing must be done, not acted, where all is real; not in shadow, and representation: where we must be Holy, as he is Holy, perfect, as he is perfect, true as he is true: where we must behave ourselves, as in the House of God, which is not pergula pidoris a Painters shop, where all is in show, nothing in truth; where not the Garments but the heart must be rend; that as Christ our head was crucified indeed, not in show, or in phantasm (as Martion would have it) so we might present him a wounded soul, a bleeding Repentance, a flesth crucified, and so join, as it were, with Christ in a real and sincere putting away, and abolishing of sin. God is truth itself: True and faithful in his promises; if he speak he doth it, if he command it shall stand fast, and therefore hateth a feigned, forced, wavering, imaginary Repentance, to come in a vizor, or disguise before him, is an abomination; nor will he give true joy for feigned sorrow, Heaven for a shadow; nor everlasting happiness for a counterfeit, momentary turn, Eternity for that which is not, for that which is nothing: For Repentance if it be not sincere, is nothing. The holy Father will tell us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, 
Nazianz. or 19  that which is feigned is not lasting; that which is forced sails, and ends, with that artificial spring that turns it about; as we see the wheels of a clock move not, when the Plummet is on the ground, because the beginning of that motion is ab extrà, not from its internal Form, but from some outward violence, or Art without, simplex recti cura, multiplex pravi, there is but one true principle of a real turn, 
Septem men. dacijseget mendacium unum, ut verum videatur. Luth. J'd Jndulgent.  (the fear of God) there may be very many of a false one: as Martin Luther said, that one lie had need of seven more, to draw but an apparency of truth over it, that it may pass under that name; so that which is not sincere, is brought in with a troop of attendants like itself, and must be set off with great diligence, and art; when that which is true commends itself, and needs no other hand to paint, or polish it. What art and labour is required to smooth a wrinkled brow? what ceremony? what noise? what trumpets? what extermination of the countenance? what sad looks? what Tragical deportment must usher in an Hypocrite? what a penance doth he undergo, that will be a Pharisee? how many counterfeit sighs, and forced groans? how many Fasts? how many Sermons must be the prologue to a false turn? to a Nominal turn? for we may call it turning from our evil ways; when we do but turn and look about us, to secure ourselves in them; or to make way to worse: Ahab and Jezebel did so: Absalon did so: the Jows did so; 
Isa. 58.4.  Fast to smite with the fist of wickedness, and to make their voice to be heard on high. A false turn? wickedness itself may work it; craft and cruelty may blow the trumpet in Zion, and sanctify afast. A feigned repentance? Opression, policy, the love of the world, sin itself may beget it, and so advance and promote itself, and be yet more sinsul, and commonly a false turn makes the fairest show, 
Plin. Panegyr.  appears in greater glory to a carnal eye, than a true; ingeniosior ad excogitandum simulatio veritate, for hypocrisy is far more witty, seeks out more inventions, and many times is more diligent, and laborious, than the truth; because truth hath but one work, to be what it is, and takes no care for outward pomp and ostentation; nor comes forth at any time to be seen, unless it be to propagate itself in others.  
Now by this, we may judge of our turn, whether it be right and natural or no: For as we may make many a false turn, so there may be many false springs, or principles to set us a mourning: sometimes fear may do it; sometimes hope, sometimes policy, and in all the love of ourselves, more than of God; and then commonly our Tragedy concludes in the first scene; nay in the very prologue; our Repentance is at an end in the very first turn, 
Nemo potest personam diu far. Ficta citò in na●urant suam recidunt. Sen. 1. de Clem. c. 1.  in the very first show; Ahabs Repentance, a flash, at the Prophet's thunder; Pharaohs Repentance drove on with an East-wind, and compassed about with locusts; an inconstant, false, and desultory repentance. I cannot better compare it, then to those motions by water-works: whilst the water runs, the devise turns round, and we have some History of the Bible presented to our eyes, but when the water is run out, all is at an end, and we see that no more, which took our eyes with such variety of action, and so it is many times in our turn, (which is no better than a Pageant) whilst the waters of affliction beat upon us, we are in motion, and we may present divers actions and signs of true Repentance: Our eyes may gush out with tears; we hang down our head, and beat our breast; our tongue, our glory may awake, and our hands may be stretched out to the poor; we may cry peccavi with David; we may put on sackcloth with Ahab; we may go forth with Peter; but when these waters of bitterness are abated or cease, than our motion faileth, and our turn is at an end: our tears are dried up, and our tongue silent, and our hands withered, and it plainly appears, that our Turn was but artificial, 
Hier. l. 2 cp. 10  our motion counterfeit: and our Repentance, but a kind of puppit-play: malorum vestigia quasi in Salo posita, fluctuant, & prolabuntur, saith Jerom. The wicked walk in this world, as on the waves of the sea; they make a proffer to go and walk, but they soon sink and fall down, their motion is wavering and inconstant, and he gives the reason: Fundamenta fidei solida non habent they have no sure grounding, nor doth the love of goodness, but some thing else thus startle and disquiet them in evil; saul's whining at samuel's reproof: Ahabs mourning and humbling himself at Elijahs Prophesy; Felix trembling at Paul's preaching were not voluntary and natural motions, but beat out by the hammer. The loss of a kingdom: the destruction of a Family; the fear of judgement may drive any Saul to his prayers; cloth any Ahab with sackcloth, and bring motum trepicationis a fit of trembling upon any Felix, lose the joints of any Heathen. For as it is observed, that the very Heathen retained some seeds of truth, and although they had no full and perfect sight of it, but saw it at a distance, falsum tamen ab absurdo refutarunt, yet condemned error and falsehood by that absurdity which was visible enough, and written as it were in its very forehead: so in the most rotten and corrupt hearts there are divinae Veritatis semina, some seeds of saving knowledge, but choked and stifled with the love of vanity, and the cares of this world; and though they do not hate sin, yet the horror of sin, or that smart which it brings along with it, makes them sometimes turn away, and make a seeming flight from that sin which they cannot hate. What therefore the Philosopher speaks of friendship is here very appliable: that friendship is most lasting, which hath the best and furest ground, which is built and raised upon virtue: 
Arist. Eth. 8. c. 8.  〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the friendship of wicked men is as unconstant, and unstable as themselves: for they want that goodness, which is the confirmation and bond of love. If it rise from pleasure, that's a thinner vapour than a man's life, and it appears a less time and then vanisheth away: and the friend goes with it: if you lay it on riches, they have wings, and that love, which was tied to them flies away with them. Nothing can give it a sure, and firm being, but that piety, which is as lasting as the Heavens: profit and pleasure, and by-respects are but threads of tow, and when these are broken, than they, who had but one mind and soul, are two again: And so also it is with us in our converse and walking with our God; whose friends we are, if we keep his say, if the love of his name be, as it were the form and principle, that moves and carries us towards him, if we turn in his Name: but if we do it upon those false grounds, upon such motives, which will rather change our countenance, and gesture, than our minds, and make us seem good for a while, 
Mali non apparent, ut plus liceat malignari. Bern. in Cant. 6.6.  to be worse for ever after: if we vomit up our sin to ease our stomach, and then lick it up again; if we turn, that the flying book of curses overtake us not; we then give him but a single turn, nay, the shadow of a turn, for a double call; our Conversion is not Sincere, and True: there must be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, something to strengthen it, that which will make us like him, will knit and unite us to him; our Repentance must be fully sormea in our hearts, before it speak in sorrow, or be poured forth in Tears, or hang down the head at a Fast, before it take the penitential Habit; our Turn must be begun and continued by Faith and Obedience; and then we shall not only be Baptised in the Tears of our Repentance, but withal receive our Confirmation.  
And let us thus Turn: For first, False Repentance is a sin greater than that I Turn from; because to make a show of Hatred to that I most love, is to love it still, and make my guilt greater by an Additionall lie, to seem to be sorry for that, I delight in: to forsake that, I cleave to; to renounce that, which I embrace: to Turn from that, which I follow after, which makes our Condition, in some respects, worse than that of the Atheist, For we do not only deny God, but deny him with a mock, which is a greater sin, than not to Think of him. If we Profess we Turn, and yet run on; we sin in professing that which we do not, and we sin in not doing that which we profess: If we profess we do it, why then do we it not? and if we do it not, why do we profess it? A show of what I should be, accuseth me, for not being what I show, as we see the Ape appears more deformed, and ridiculous, because 'tis like a man, and a Strumpet is never more despicable, then in a Matrons stole; as Nazianzen speaks of Women, that paint themselves, 
Naz. or. 19 A Gel. Noct. Attic. l 1.2. Aristippus in purp urâ sub magnà gravitatis specie ne potatur. Tert. Apol. 46. Athenaei Deipnos. l. 13. c. 1. Aristoph, Eupolis.  〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, their Beauty shows them more deformed, because 'tis Counterfeit. They very heathen could say, Odi homines Philosophâ sententiâ, ignauâ operâ. I hate those men, who are Stoics in word, and Epicures in Deed, whose virtue is nothing else but a bare sentence in Philosophy, with some advantage from the Gown and Beard. Sopbocles, who had no more chastity, than what he was to thank his Old Age for, yet could lash, and with great bitterness reproach Euripides, and pass this censure upon him; That he was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, that he was very bitter against women in his Tragedies, but more kind than was fitting, in his Chamber. The Comedians, to make Socrates ridiculous to the People, bring him upon the Stage, measuring the leaps of Fleas, and disputing, and putting it to the Question, what part it was they made a noise at; but never thought he had sufficiently exposed him to laughter, till he brought him in discoursing of Virtue, and in his very Lecture of Morality, stealing a piece of Plate: For he knew nothing could be more absurd, then for a Philosopher to play the Thief; and then too when he was prescribing the rules of Honesty. Now, if the very Pagans, by the light of Nature could condemn Hypocrisy by their very scorn, and deride and hate it; no sentence can be severe enough against it, in a Christian: because the Abuse of Goodness is fare the greater, by how much the goodness, which is abused, is more Excellent, and levelled to a better End; and therefore a formal Penitent is the grossest Hypocrite in the world.  
Besides this in the Second place; God, who, is Truth itself, stands in extreme opposition to all that is feigned, and counterfeit; An Alms with a Trumpet: a Fast with a sour face; devotion, that devours Widows Houses, do more provoke him to wrath, than those vices, which these outward Formalities seem to cry down: Nothing is more distasteful to him, than a mixed, compounded Christian, made up of a bended knee, and a stiff neek; of an attentive care, and a Hollow heart; of a pale Countenance, and a rebellious Spirit: of Fasting and Oppression; of Hearing and Deceit: of Cringes, and bowings, and flatteries, and real disobedience; Absolon's vow, Jehu's sacrifices, Simon Magus his Repentance; Ahab's Fast, 
Non amat salsum eutor veritans: Adulteriam est apud illum omne quod Fingitur. Tert de Ep. c. 23.  his soul doth hate, or any Devil that puts on Samuel's Mantle: and he so fare detests the mere outward performance of a Religious Duty, that when he thunders from heaven, when he breathes out his menaces and Threaten on the greatest sinners, The burden is: they shall have their portion with Hypocrites. In the 20. Chapter of Exedas, at the 25. verse we read. Non ascendet super Altare securis: Thou shalt not build an Altar of Hewn stone, nor shalt thou lift up a Tool upon it: why not lift a Tool upon it? They used the Hatchet saith Nazianzen, to build the Ark, to srame the staves of Chittim wood; they wrought in Gold, and silver, and Brass, with Iron Instruments, They put a Knife to the Throat of the Sacrifice; yet here, to life up a Tool upon any stone of the Altar, is to pollute it; and why not pollute the Ark, as well as the Altar? the Father gives the Reason: The stones of the Altar were by the Providence of God, and a kind of miracle found fitted already for that work, 
Eaz. Orat. 19  〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, because, saith he, whatsoever is consecrate to God, must not borrow from the help of Art; must not be Artificial, but Natural. If we build an Altar unto God, to sacrifice ourselves on, the stones must be naturally fitted, not he wen out by Art: not a forced Groan, a forced acknowledgement, artificial Tears, but such as Nature sendeth forth, when our grief is True.  
To avoid this Danger then, let us ask ourselves the Question, whether we have gone further in our Turn then an Ahab, or an Herod, or a Simon Magus, and even by their feigned Turn, learn to make up ours in Truth. For did Ahab mourn, and put on Sackcloth? did Herod hear John Baptist, and hear him gladly? did Simon Magus desire Peter to prya for him, even then, when he was in the Gall of bitterness? what anxiety? what contritiion must perfect my conversion? si tanti vitrum, quanti margarita? if glass cast such a brightness, what must the lustre of a diamond be? 
Aristot. Metaph. 2.  And thus may we make use, even of hypocrisy itself, to establish ourselves in the truth; make Ahab and Herod arguments and motives to make our Repentance sure: For as the Philosopher well tells us, that we are not only beholding to those, who accurately handled the points and conclusions in Philosophy, but to those also, and even to Poets 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, who did light upon them by chance; and but glance upon them by allusion; so may we receive instruction, even from these Hypocrites, who did repent, tanquam aliud agentes so slightly, as if they had some other matter in hand. We must fast and put on sackcloth with Ahab; we must hear the word with Herod, we must beg the prayers of the Church with Simon Magus, but finding we are yet short of a true turn, we must press forward, and exactly make up this divine science; that our turn may be real, and in good earnest; that it may be finished after his form, who calls so loud after us, that it may be brought about, and approved to him, in all sincerity and truth.  
Thus much of the second property of Repentance.   

The third property of our Turn; It must be total and Universal,  
The third is: it must be poenitentia plena a total and Universal conversion, a turn from all our evil ways. For if it be not total, and Universal, it is not true. A great error there is in our lives, and the greatest part of mankind are taken, pleased, and lost in it: to argue and conclude à part ad totum, to take the part for the whole, and from the slight forbearance of some one unlawful act; from the superficial performance of some particular duty to infer, and vainly arrogate to themselves, a hatred to all, and an universal obedience: as if what Tiberius the Emperor was wont to say, of his Half-eaten-meats, were true of our divided, our parcel, and curtailed Repentance, 
Suet. Tiber. Cas. cap. 34.  Omnia eadem habere, quae totum, every part of it, every motion and inclination to newness of life, had as much in it, as the whole body and compass of our Obedience, and there were that mutual agreement, and sympathy of duties in a Christian, as Physicians say there are of the parts of a living Creature: the same sapor and taste in a disposition to Goodness, as in a Habit of goodness; The same Heat and Heartiness in a Thought, as in a constant, and earnest perseverance; in a velleity as much activity, as in a will; as much in a Pharisees pale countenance, as in Saint Paul's severe discipline, 
Hippocrat de locis in Homine  and mortification; and as Hypocrates speaks 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, in the least performance all the parts of our obedience, in a mere approbation, a desire; in a desire, a will; in a leaving one evil way, a turning rome all, and cutting off but one limb or part, the utter destruction of the whole body of sin.  
And therefore, as if God did look down from Heaven, and from thence behold the children of men; and then saw how we turned, oens from luxury to covetousness; another from superstition to profaneness; a third from Idols, to sacrilege; as if he beheld us turning from one sin to another; or from some great sin; not another, from our scandalous, and not from our more Domestic, Retired, and speculative sins; he sends forth his voice, and that a mighty voice, turn ye, turn ye, not from one by-path to another, not from one sin, and not another, but turn ye, turn ye, that you need turn no more, turn ye from all your evil ways: 
Curt. l. 6. c. 3.  In corporibus aequis nihil nociturum medici relinquunt, Physicians purge out all noxious humours, from sick and crazy bodies; and so doth our great physician of souls, sanctify and cleanse them, that he may present them to himself, not having spot or wrinkle, 
Eph. 5.26,27.  or any such thing; that they may be Hely and without Blemish.  
For to turn from one sin to another, from prodigality to sorditude and love of the world, from extreme to extreme is to flee from a Lion to meet a Bear: 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉: extremities are equalities: 
Amos 5.19.  though they are extremes and distant, yet in this they agree, that they are extremes, and though our evil ways be never so far asunder, yet in this they meet; that they are evil. Superstition dotes; profaneness is mad, covetousness gathers all; prodigality scatters all; rash anger destroys the innocent; soolish compassion spares the guilty. We need not ask, which is worst, when both are evil; for sin and destruction lie at the door of the one, as well as of the other. To despise prophesying, and to hear a Sermon, as I would a song: not to hear, and to do nothing else, but hear; to worship the walls, and to beat down a Church; to be superstituious, and to be profane are extremes, which we must equally turn from, down with superstition on the one side; and down with profaneness on the other; down with it, even to the ground: Because some are bad, let not us be worse; and make their sin a motive, and inducement to us to run upon a greater, because some talk of merits, be afraid of good works; because they vow chastity, pollute ourselves: because they vow poverty, make haste to be rich: because they vow obedience, speak evil of Dignities. It is good to shun one rock, but there is as great danger if we dash upon another. Superstition hath devoured many, but profaneness is a gulf, which hath swallowed up more, 
Phod. cod. 77  〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, saith Photius in his censure of Theodorus Antiochenus, for that which is opposite to that which is worst, is not good; for one evil stands in opposition to another, and both at their several distance, are contrary to that which is good; nor can I hope to expitate one sin with another; to make amends for my Oppression, with my wasteful expenses; to satisfy for bowing to an Idol, by robbing a Church, for contemning a Priest, by hearing a Sermon, for standing in the way of sinners, by running into a conventicle; for I am still in the seat of the scornful; this were first to make ourselves worthy of death, and then to run to Rome, or Geneva for sanctuary: first to be villains, and men of Belial, and at last turn Papists or Schismatics; in both we are what we should not be, nor are our sins lost in a faction: this were nothing else, but to think to remove one disease with another, and to cure the cramp with a Fever. Turn ye, turn ye, whither should we turn but to God? In hoc motu convertit se anime adunitatem et identitatem, in this motion of turning, 
Gerson.  the soul strives forward through the vanities of the world, through all extremes, through all that is evil (though the branches of it look contrary ways) to unity and Identity, to that good which is ever like itself, the same in every part of it, and is never contrary to itself; strives forward to be one with God, as God is one in us; and as he is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 one and the same God in all his commands; not forbidding one sin, and permitting another; as his ways are equal, so must our turn be equal, not from the right hand to the left, not from superstition, to profaneness; not from despising of prophecy, to Sermonhypocrisy, not from uncleanness to faction, not from Riot to Rebellion; but a turn from all Extremes, from all evil; a collection and levelling the soul, which before looked divers ways, and turning her face upon the way of truth, upon God alone.  
If we turn as we should, if we will answer this earnest, and vehement call, we must turn from all our evil ways: we use to say, that there is as great a miracle wrought in our conversion, as in the Creation of the world, but this is not true, in every respect; for man, though he be a sinner, yet is something, hath an understanding, will, affections to be wrought upon; yet as it is one condition required in a true miracle, that it be perfect; so that there be not only a change, but such a change, which is absolute, and exact, that it may seem to be, as it were, a new Creation; that water which is changed into wine, may be no more water, but wine;  the blind man do truly see, the lame man truly walk, and the dead man truly live, so is it in our turn and conversion, there is a total and perfect change: the Adulterer is made an Eunuch for the kingdom of Heaven; the intemperate comes forth with a knife at his throat; the revenger kisseth the hand that strikes him; when we Turn, sin vanisheth, the Old man is dead, and in its place, there stands up a new Creature.  
In the 15. to Galatians, Saint Paul speaking of the works of the flesh (which are nothing but sins) and having given us a catalogue, reckoned up many of them, by which we might know the rest, at last concludes. Of which I tell you before, as I have told you often, that they who do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God: where the Apostles meaning is not, that they who do all these, or most of these, or many of these, or more than one of these, but they, who die possessed of any one of these shall have no place in the kingdom of God, and of Christ: for what profit is there to turn from one sin, and not all, when one sin is enough to make us breakers of the whole Law, and so liable to eternal death? It is a conclusion in the Schools; that whosoever is in the state of any one mortal sin, and turns not from it, whatsoever he doth, do he pray, or give alms, bow the knee before God, or open his hand to his brother; be it what it will in itself, never so fair and commendable, it is forth with blasted, and defaced, and is so far from deserving commendations, that it hath no other wages due to it, but death. I cannot say, this is true (for so far as it is agreeable with reason, so far it must needs be pleasing to the God of reason; so far as it answers the rule, so far is it accepted of him, that made it) nor can we think, that Regulus, Fabricius, Cato, and the rest, who do convitium facere Christianis, upbraid and shame many of us Christians, were damned for their justice, their integrity, their honesty; (Hell is no receptacle for men so qualified, were there nothing else to prepare and fit them for that place) but yet most true it is, that if we be endued and beautified with many virtues, yet the habit of one sin is enough to deface them, to draw that night and darkness about them, that they shall not be seen; to put them to silence, that they shall have no power to speak, or plead for us, in the day of trial: though they be not sins, not bright, and shining sins, (for I cannot see how darkness itself should shine) yet they shall become utterly unprofitable, they may, peradventure lessen the number of the stripes, but yet the unrepentant sinner shall be beaten. For what ease can a myriad of virtues do him, who is under Arrest? nay, what performance can acquit him, who is condemned already? Reason itself stands up against it, and forbids it: for what obedience is that, which answers but in part? which follows one precept, and runs away from another? and than what imperfect monsters should the kingdom of Heaven receive? a liberal man, but not chaste; a Temperate man, but not honest? a Zealous man, but not Charitable, a great Faster, and a great Impostor, a Beadsman, and a These; an Apostle, a great Preacher, and a Traitor? such a Monstrous misshapen Christian cannot stand before him; who is a pure, uncompounded Essence, the same in every Thing, and Every Where; One and the same, even Unity itself.  
For again; every man is not equally inclined to every sin: This man loves that, which another loathes, and he who made the Devil fly at the first Encounter, may entertain him at a second: he that resisted him in lust, may yield to him in Anger: He who will none of his delicates, may fail at his Terrors, and he that feared not the roaring of the Lion, may be ensnared by the flattery of the Serpent. For the force of Temptations is many times quickened, or Dulled according to the Natural Constitutions, and several complexions of men, and other outward Circumstances, by which they may work more coldly, or more vehemently upon the will, and Affections. A man of a dull and Torpid disposition is seldom Ambitious; a man of a quick and active Spirit, seldom Idle; the Choleric man not obnoxious to those evils, which melancholy doth hatch; nor the Melancholic to those, which Choler is apt to produce: As hard a matter it may be for some men to commit some one sin, as it is for others to avoid it; as hard a matter for the Fool in the Gospel to have scattered his Goods, as it was for the other Fool the Prodigal to have kept them; as hard a matter for some to let lose their Anger, as it is for others to curb and bridle it: some by their very temper and Constitution, with ease withstand lust, but must struggle and take pains to keep down their Anger: Some can stand upright in Poverty, but are overthrown by wealth: some can resist this Temptation by slighting it; but must beat and macerate themselves, must use a kind of violence before they can overcome another, which is more suitable, and more flatters their Constitution: And this we may find by those darts, which we cast at one another, those uncharitable Censures we pass: For how do the Covetous condemn and pity the Prodigal? and how doth the Prodigal loath and scorn the Covetous? How doth the Lukewarm Christian abominate the Schismaticque, and the Schismaticque call every man so, if he be not as mad as himself? How doth this man bless himself, and wonder, that any should fall into such or such a sin; when he that commits it, wonders as much, that he should fall into the Contrary? For the Enemy applies himself to every Humour, and Temper, and having found where every man lies open to invasion, there strives to make his Battery, where every man is most assaultable, and there enters with such forces, which we are ready to obey: with a sword, which the Revenger will snatch at; with Riches, which the Covetous will dig for; with a dish of dainties, which the Glutton will greedily devour, and what bait soever we taste of, we are in his Snare; he hath his several Darts, and if any one pierce the heart, he is a Conqueror: For he knows the wages of any one sin unrepented, is death. We are indeed, too ready to flatter, and comfort ourselves in that sin, which best complies with our Humour, ever more to favour and Pardon ourselves in some sin or other, and to make our obedience to one precept an Advocate to plead for us, and hold us up in the breach of another; I am not as other men are, there are more Pharisees than one that have spoke it. Some sin or other there is, either of Profit, or pleasure, or the like, to which by Complexion we are inclined, which we too oft dispense with, as willing it should stay with us (as Austin confesses of himself, that when he prayed against Lust, he was not very willing to be heard, or that God should too soon divorce him from his beloved sin) At the same time we would be Good, and yet evil; we would partake of life, and yet join with that, which tends unto death: we would be converts, and yet wantoness; we would Turn from one sin, and yet cleave fast to another. Oh let me Hugg my Mammon, saith the Miser, and I'll defy lust: let me take my fill of love, saith the wanton, and I'll spurn at Wealth: Let me wash my feet in the blood of my enemies, saith the Revenger, and all other pleasure I shall look upon, and loath: I will fast and pray, saith the Ambitious, so they may be wings to carry me to the highest place, where I had rather be, then in heaven itself. Every man may be induced to abstain from those sins, which either hinder not, or promote that, to which he is carried by the swinge of this natural Temper, and disposition: And as every Nation (in the times of Darkness) had its several God, which they worshipped, and neglected others; so every man almost hath his beloved sin, which he cleaves to, and rather than he will Turn from it, will fling off all respect, and familiarity to the rest; will abstain from evil in this kind, so he may take in the other, which is pleasant to him; will be for God, so he may be for Baal too; will not Touch, so he may Taste, will not look on this forbidden Tree, so he may pluck and Taste of the other: And this is to sport and please ourselves in that evil way, which leads to Death; For what though I scape the Lion, if the Bear tear me in pieces? what is it to lean our hand, and rest upon the forbearance of some sins, if a Serpent by't us? what is it to Turn from many sins, and yet be too familiar with that, which will destroy us? Saul, we know, spared many of the Amalekites, when Gods command was, to put all to the sword, and the event was; he spared one too many, for one of them was his Executioner; God bids us destroy the whole Body of fin, to leave no sin reigning in our mortal Bodies, and if we favour and spare but one, that one, if we Turn not from it, will be strong enough to Turn us to Destruction.  
For again; It is Obedience only, that commends us to God, and that, as exact, and perfect, as the equity of the Gospel requires, and so every degree of sin is rebellion: God requires totam voluntatem, the whole will for indeed) where it is not whole, it is not at all, it is not a will, and integram poenitentiam, a solid, entire, universal Conversion. True Obedience, saith Luther, non transit in genus deliberativum, doth not demur and deliberate, I may add, non transit in genus judiciale, doth not take upon itself to determine, which Commandment is to be kept, and which may be omitted; what in it is to be done, and what is to be left undone. For as our Faith is imperfect; if it be not equal to that Truth which is revealed; so is our obedience imperfect, when 'tis not equal to the command, and both are unavailable, because in the one we stick at some part of the Truth revealed, and in the other come short of the command; and so in the one distrust God, in the other oppose him: what is a sigh, if my murmuring drown it? what is my Devotion, if my Impatience chill it? what is my Liberality, if my uncleanness defile it? what are my Prayers, if my partial obedience turn them into sin? what is a morsel of bread to one poor man, when my oppression hath eaten up a Thousand? what is my Faith, if my malice make me worse than an Infidel? The voice of Scripture, the Language of Obedience is; to keep all the Commandments; the language of Repentance, to departed from all Iniquity. For all the Virtues in the world cannot wash off the guilt of one unrepented sin; Shall I give my firstborn for my Transgression, saith the Prophet, the fruit of my body, for the sin of my soul? shall I bring the merits of one Saint? the supererogations of another? and add to these the Treasure of the Church? shall I bring my Alms, my Devotion, my Tears; all these will vanish at the guilt of one sin, and melt before it, as the wax before the Sun: for every sin is, as Seneca speaks of Alexander's, in killing Calisthenes, Crimen aeternum, 
Sen. de Benef.  an everpentance can redeem; For, as oft as it shall be said, that Alexander slew so many thousand persians, it will be replied, he did so, but withal, he slew Calisthenes. He slew Darius, 'tis true, and Calisthenes too: He won all, as fare as the very Ocean; 'tis true, but he killed Calisthenes; and as oft we shall fill our minds, and flatter ourselves with the forbearance of these, or those sins, our Conscience will check and take us up, and tell us; but we have continued in this, or that beloved sin, and none of all our performances shall make so much to our comfort, as one unrepented sin shall to our Reproach.  
And now because in common esteem, one is no number, and we scarce count him guilty of sin, who hath but one fault; Let us well weigh the danger of any one sin; be it Fornication, Theft or Covetousness, or the like, be it whatsoever is called sin; and though, perhaps, we may dread it the less, because it is but one, yet we sahll find good reason to Turn from it, because it is sin.  
And first: Every particular sin is of a monstrous aspect, being committed not only against the Law written; but against the Law of Nature, which did then Characterise the soul, when the soul did first inform the Body: for though we call those horrid sins unnatural, which Saint Paul speaks against in the 1. to the romans, yet in true estimation, every sin is so, being against our very Reason, which is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, 
Naz. or. 34.  the very first Law, written in our hearts, saith Naz. for sin is an unreasonable Thing, nor can it descend itself by discourse, or argument. If Heaven were to be bought with sin, it were no Purchase, for by every evil work, I forfeit not only my Christianity, but my manhood; I am robbed of my chiefest Jewel, and I myself am the Thief. Who would buy eternity with sin? who would buy Immortality upon such loathed Terms: If Christ should have promised Heaven upon condition of a wicked life, who would have believed there had been either Christ or Heaven? And therefore it is laid as an imputation upon man, Solum hoc animal Naturae fines transgreditur, no Creature breaks the bounds and limits which Nature hath set, but Man; and there is much of Truth in it; man, when he sins, is more unbounded, and irregular than a Beast. For a Beast follows the conduct of his natural Appetite, but man leaves his Reason behind, which should be more powerful, and is as natural to him as his sense. Man, saith the prophet David, that understands not, is like to the Beasts that perish; and Man that is like to a Beast, is worse than he: No Fox to Herod, no Goat to the Wanton; no Tiger to the Murderer; no Wolf to the Oppressor; no Horseleech to the Covetous; for Beasts follow that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, that instinct of Nature, by which they are carried to the Object; but man makes Reason, which should come in to rescue him from sin, an Instrument of Evil; so that his Reason, which was made as a help; as his God on Earth, serves only to make him more unreasonable. Consider then, though it be but one sin, yet so fare it makes thee like unto a Beast, nay worse than any; though it be one, yet it hath a monstrous aspect; and then Turn from it.  
Secondly: though it be but one; yet it is very fruitful, and may beget another, nay, multiply itself into a numerous issue, into as many sins, as there be hairs of thy head: for as it is truly said, omne verum, omni vero consonat, there is a kind of agreement, and harmony in truths; and the devout School-man tells us, that the whole Scripture is but one copulative proposition, because the precepts therein contained are many, and yet one, many in regard of the diversity of those works, that perfect them, but yet one, in respect of that root of charity, which gins them; so peccatum multiplex, & unum, there is a kind of dependency between sins, and a growth in wickedness, one drawing, and deriving poison from another 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Epiphanius speaks of heresies, 
Epiphan. Heres. Bastlid.  as the Asp doth from the Viper, which being set in opposition to any particular virtue, creepeth on, and multiplies, and gathers strength to the endangering of all. And sin may propagate itself; first, as an efficient cause, Removens prohibens, weaking the power of grace, dimming the light of the Gospel, setting us at a greater distance from the brightness of it, making us more venturous, taking off our blush of modestty, which should restrain us, one evil act may dispose us to commit the like, and that may bring on a thousand. Secondly, as a material cause; one sin may prepare matter for another; thy covetousness beget debate; debate enrage thee more; and that not end but in murder. Last of all, as the final cause, thou mayest commit theft for fornication, and fornication for theft, that thou mayest continue a Tyrant, be more a Tyrant; that thou mayest uphold thy oppression, oppress more, that thou mayest walk on in safety, walk on in the blood of the innocent, that thou mayest be what thou art, be worse than thou art, be worse and worse, till thou art no more. Ambition leads Absalon to conspiracy, conspiracy to open Rebellion, Rebellion to his Father's Concubines; at last to the Oak, where he hung with three darts in his side. For sin, saith Basil, like unto a stone, that is cast into the water, multiplies itself by infinite Gires, and Circles; The sins of our youth hasten us to the sins of our age; an the sins of our age look back upon the follies of our youth; pride feathers my ambition, and ambition swells my pride, gluttony is a pander to my lust, and my lust a steward to my gluttony: Sins seldom end, where they begin, but run on, till they be infinite, and innumerable. And now this unhappy fruitfulness of sin may be a strong motive to make me run away from every sin, and fear one evil spirit, as that which may bring in a Legion. Can I think, that when I tell a lie, I am in a disposition to betray a kingdom; could I imagine that when I slander my Neighbour, I am in an aptitude to blaspheme God, could I see luxury in gluttony, and incest in luxury; strife in covetousness; and in strife murder; in idleness theft, and in theft sacrilege; I should then Turn from every evil way, and at the sight of any one sin, with fear and trembling, cry out; behold a troop cometh.  
But in the Third place, if neither the monstrosity of sin, nor the fruitfulness of sin moves us, yet the guilt it brings along with it, and the obligation to punishment may deter us: For sin must needs then be terrible, when she comes with a whip in her hand: indeed she is never without one, if we could see it; and all those heavy judgements which have fallen upon us, and pressed us well-neer to nothing, we may impute to what we please, to the madness of the people, to the craft and covetousness of some, and the improvidence of others, but 'twas sin that called them down, and for aught we know, 
Josh. 7.2. Sam. the last c.  but one. For one sin as of Achan, all Israel may be punished; for one sin, as of David, threescore and ten thousand may fall by the plague: For Jonahs' disobedience, a Tempest may be raised upon all the Mariners in the ship: and what stronger wind can there blow then this, to drive us every one out of every evil way? how should this consideration leave a sting behind it, and affect hand startle us? It may be my sacrilege, may the Church-robber, It may be my luxury, may the wanton, It may be my bold irreverence in the House of God; may the profane man say: whatsoever sin it is, it may be mine, which hath wrought this desolation on the earth; and than what an Achan, what a Jonah, what a Murderer am I? I will confess with Achan; build an altar with David, throw this Jonah overboard, cast this sin out of my soul, that God may turn from his fierce wrath, and shine once again both upon my Tabernacle, and upon the Nation.  
But in the last place; if his anger be not hot enough in his temporal punishments; it will hereafter boil and reak in a Cauldron of unquenchable fire; he will punish thee eternally for any one sin habituated in thee, which thou hast not turned from by Repentance. Saint Basil makes the punishment not only infinite in duration, but in degrees, and increase, and was of opinion, that the pains of the damned are every moment intended, and augmented, according, as even one sin may spread itself from man to man, from one generation to another, even to the world's end, by its venomous contagion and ensample. Think we as meanly, and slightly, as we will, (swallow it without fear, live in it without sense, yet thus it may (for aught we can say to the contrary) multiply and increase both itself, and our punishment, and this of Saint Basil may be true. My love of the world may kindle my anger, my anger may end in murder, my murder may beget a Cain, and Cain a Lamech, and from Cain, by a kind of propagation of sin, may proceed a bloody race throughout all generations; and I shall be punished for Cain; and punished for Lameoh; and as many as the contagion of my sin shall reach, and I shall be punished for my own sins; and I shall be pinished for my other men's sins (as Father Latimer speaks), and my punishment shall be every moment infinitely, and infinitely multiplied, and increased; a heavy and sad consideration it is, and very answerable, and proportionable to this loud and vehement ingemination Convertimini, Convertimini, Turn ye, Turn ye, able to turn us, and so to turn us, that we may turn from every evil way.   

The fourth property of our Turn, it must be final, carried on to the end.  
Our turn then must be true, and sincere; and it must be universal; we must turn with all our Heart; and turn from all our sins; there is yet one property more, one thing more required, that it be final, that we hold it on unto the end, for without this the other three are lost; the speediness, the sincerity, the universality of our Repentance are of no force, which though it were true 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, in respect of its essential parts, and in respect of its latitude and extent, yet is it not true in respect of its duration, unless we Turn once for all, and never fall back upon those paths, out of which horror, grief, and disdain did drive us; it may work our peace, and reconcile us for a time; but if we fail, and fall back, even our turn, our former Repentance forsakes us, and mercy itself withdraws, and leaves us under that wrath, which we were fled from. And therefore in our turn, this must go along with us, and continue the motion; the consideration of the great hazard we run, when we turn from our evil ways, and then turn back again.  
For first, as a pardon doth nullify former sins, so it maketh our sins, which we commit afterwards more grievous, and fatal; and as it is observed; that it is the part of a wise friend etiam leves suspiciones fugere, to shun the least suspicion of offence, 
Hier. ad pau. mach. & marcel.  ne quod fortuito fecit, consultò facere videretur, lest what might formerly be imputed to chance or infirmity, may now seem to proceed from wilfulness; so when we turn, and God is pleased so far to condescend, as to take us to his favour, and of enemies, not only make us his servants, but call us his friends; it will then especially concern us, to abstain from all appearance of evil, to suspect every object, as the devils lurking place, in which he lies in wait, to betray us; lest we may seem to have begged pardon of our sins, not out of hatred, but out of love unto them, and to have left our sins for a time, to commit them afresh. We are bound now, not only in a bond of common duty, but of gratitude: for his free favour is Numella, as a clog, or yoke, to chain and fetter, and restrain us from sin, that we commit not that every day, for which we must beg pardon every day.  
A reason of this we may draw from the very love of God: for the anger of God, in a manner, is the effect, and product of his love: He is Angry if we sin; because he loved us: he is displeased when we yield to Temptations; because he loved us, and his Anger is the hotter, because his love was excessive. As the Husband which most affectionately loves the Wife of his youth, and would have her be as the loving Hind, and pleasant Roe, 
Prov. 5.19.  but to himself alone, will not allow so much love from her, as may be conveyed in a look, or the glance of an eye; is jealous of her very looks, of her deportment, of her garments, and will have her to behave herself with that Modesty and strangeness, ut quisquis videat, metuat accedere, that no man may be so bold, as to come so near, as to ask the question, or make mention of love; and all, because he most affectionately loves her: So much, nay, far greater is the love of God to our souls, which he hath married unto himself, in whom he desires to dwell, and take delight, and so dearly he loves them, that he will not divide with the World and the Flesh; but is strait in Passion, if we cast but a favourable ook, or look friendly upon that sin, by which we first offended him; if we come but near to that which hath the show of a Rival, or Adversary: but if we let our Desires lose, and fall from him, and Embrace the next Temptation, which woos us, than he counts us guilty of spiritual whoredom, and Adultery; His jealousy is cruel as the Grave, and this Jealousy, which is an effect of his love, shall smoke against us. First, it was Love and Jealousy, lest we might tender cur service to strange gods, cast our Affections upon false Riches, and deceitful pleasures; and now we have left Life for Death, preferred that which first wounded us, before him that cured us; it is Anger and Indignation, that he should lose us, whom he so loved; that we should fling him off, who so loved us; That he should create, and then lose us, and afterwards purchase, and redeem us, and make us his again, and we should have no understanding, but run back again from him into Captivity.  
For in the Second place; as our sins are greater after reconcilement, so if they do not cancel the former Pardon, (as some are unwilling to grant) yet they call those sins to remembrance, which God cast behind his back. For as good Works are destroyed by sin, and revive again by Repentance, so do our evils, which are covered by Repentance, revive again by sin. Not only my Alms are devoured by oppression, my Chastity deflowered by my uncleanness; my Fasting lost in my luxury; but my former sins, which were scattered as mist before the Sun, return again, and are a thick cloud between me, and the bright and shining mercy of God. Not that there is any mutability in God; no: God doth not repent of his gifts, but we may of our Repentance, and after pardon, sin again, and so bring a new guilt upon our souls; and not only that, but vengeance upon our Heads, for the contempt tempt of his Mercy, and slighting of his former pardon. For nothing can provoke God to Anger more, than the abuse of his goodness and Mercy, nor doth his wrath burn more violently, then when 'tis first quenched, and allayed with the Tears of a sinner, and afterwards kindled again by his sin. Then he that was well pleased to be reconciled, will question and condemn us, and yet make good his Promise; he that forgot our sins, will Impute our sins; and yet be Truth itself. For remission of sins is a continued Act, and is, and remains, whist the condition which is required, remains, but when we fail in that, the door of Mercy, which before was wide open unto us, is shut against us; for should he Justify, and forgive him, who breaks his Obligation, and returns to the same place, where he stood out against God, and fought against him? shall he be reconciled to him, who will be again his Enemy? if the righteous relapse, his righteousness shall not be mentioned, 
Ez. 18.21.24.  nor shall the wickedness of the wicked be mentioned, if he repent: for the change is not in God, but in ourselves: aliter & aliter judicat de homine aliter et aliter disposito, he speaks in Mercy to the Penitent, but in anger to the relapsed sinner: The Rule of God's Actions is constant, and like himself; and in this particular, this is the Rule, this his Decree: To forgive the Penitent, and punish the relapsed Sinner: So he forgives the sinner when he reputes, and punisheth him when he falls away. And why should it be put to the Question, whether God revoke his first Pardon? Quid prodest esse, quod esse non prodest? as Tertull. speaks; if we think he did it not, or cannot do it; yet what profit is it, that, that should remain, which doth not profit? nay, which doth aggravate our sin? or what Pardon is that, which may remain firm, when he to whom it was given, for his revolt, may be Turned into Hell? when the Servant falls down, he is moved with Compassion, 
Matth. 18.  and looseth him, and forgives him the debt; But when he takes his fellow servant by the Throat, he delivers him to the Torments, till he should pay the utmost farthing; because God is ever like unto himself, constant to his Rule; and he forgives, and punisheth for this reason, because he is so, and cannot change. For as we beg our Pardon upon promise, so doth he grant it upon supposition of perseverance; for he doth not pardon us our sin, that we should sinne again; and if we break our Promise, we cut selves have made a Nullity of the Pardon, or made it of as little Virtue and Power, as if it had never been. For as the Schools tell us, that the Sacraments are Protestationes fidei, the Protestations of our Faith; so is our Prayer for Pardon, a Protestation and promise of Repentance, which is nothing else, but a continued obedience: we pray to God, To cast our Sins behind his back, with this Resolution, to extirpate them; and upon this Condition, God seals our Pardon, which we must make a motive, not to sin and fall back, but to a new life, and Constant obedience; If we Turn, and Turn back again, he may Turn his face from us for Ever.  
Again, in the Third Place; we have reason to arm ourselves against Temptation, after Pardon; because by our relapse, we do not only add sin to sin, but we are made more inclinable to it, and anon more familiar with it, and so more averse and backward to the Acts of Piety: 
Tert. l. 1. ad uxorem. c. 8.  for as Tertullian observes, viduitas operosior virginitate, that it is a matter of more difficulty to remain a Widow, then to keep our Virgin; not to taste of pleasure, then when we have tasted to forbear: so it is easier to abstain from sin a first, then when we are once engaged; when we have tasted of that Pleasure which commends it: And then, when we have loathed it, for some bitterness it had; for some misery, some Disease it brought along with it; and when that's for got, look towards it again, and see nothing but those smiles and allurements, which first deceived us; we like and love it more, than we did before it gave us any such distaste; and at last can walk along with it, though wrath be over our heads, and Death ready to devour us, and what we did before with some reluctancy, we do now uviht greediness, we did but lap before, with some fear and suspicion, at last we take it down, as the Ox doth water.  
And what an uneven, distracted course of life is this: to sin, and upon some distaste, to repent, and when that is off, since again? and upon some pang that we feel, Repent again? and after some ease, meet and join with that, which hath so pleased, which hath so troubled us? The Stoic hath well observed, homines vitam suam amant simul, & oderunt; some men at once both hate, and love themselves: now they send a divorce to sin, anon they kiss and embrace it; now they banish it, anon recall it: Now they are on the wing for Heaven, anon cleaving to the Dust; now in their Zenith, and by and by in their Nadir; Saint Ephreem the Syrian, expresseth it by the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, calls it a falling rise, or a rising fall, a course of life consisting of Turning, and Returning; in rising and relapsing; in sinning and repenting, because men find it more for their ease, deprecari crimen, quam vacare crimine, to beg Pardon for sin committed, then to forbear committing it after, and so sin and Repent, and sin again, and as solemnly, by their sin renounce their Repentance, as they do by their Repentance recant their sin: We deal with our beloved sin, as Maecenas did with his Wife, 
Sen. ep. 114.  quae cum unam habuit, millies duxit, saith Seneca, who had but one, yet married her, and divorced her from him; and then married her again, a Thousand times: First we look upon the painted face, and Countenance of sin, and are taken as it were with her Eye and Beauty; and we draw near, and embrace it; but anon the worm gnaweth us, our conscience is loud and troublesome, and then we would put it from us, when it flatters, we are even sick with love; and when it turns its worst face towards us, we are weary of it, and have an inclination, a velleity, a weak and feeble desire to shake it off: our soul loveth it, and loatheth it, we would not, and we will sin; and all upon presumption of that mercy, which first gave us ease; upon hope of forgiveness, quis enim timebit prodigere, quod habebit posteà recuperare? 
Tertul. de pudicitia. c. 9  for who will be tender and sparing of that, which he hopes to recover, though lost never so oft? or be careful of preserving that, which he thinks cannot be irrecoverably lost? so that Repentance, which should be the death of sin, is made the security of the Sinner: and that which should reconcile us to God, is made a reproach to his mercy, and contumelious to his goodness; in brief, that which should make us his friends, makes us his enemies: we turn and return, we fall and rise, and rise and fall; till at last we fall, never to rise again: And this is an ill sign, a sign our Repentance was not true, and serious, but (as in an intermitting fever) the disease was still the same, only the fit was over: 
Gravedinosos quosdam, quosdam tor ninosor 〈◊〉 mus, non quia semper, sed quia saepesunt. Tul. Tusc. q. l. 4 Galen: de fanitat. Tuendâ.  or as in an Epilepsy, or the falling sickness, it is still the same, is still in the body, though it do not cast it on the ground, and such a Repentance is not a Repentance, but to be repent of, by turning once for all, never to turn again: or if it be true, we may say of it, what Galen said of his art, to those that abuse it, who carry it not, and continue it to the end, perindè est, ac si omnino non esset, it is as if it were not at all, nay, it is fatal and deleterial: It was Repentance, it is now an accusation, a witness against us, that we would be contrà experimenta pertinaces, & even against our own experience taste that cup again, which we found bitter to us, and run into that snare, out of which we had escaped, and turn back into those evil ways, where we saw death ready to seize upon us: and so run the hazard of being lost for ever.  
And these four are the necessary requisities, 
Concl.  and properties of Repentance; it must be early and sudden; upon the first all: For why should any thing in this world stop and stay us one moment in our journey to a better? is not a span of time little enough to pay down for Eternity? it must be true and sincere; for can we hope to bind the God of Truth unto us with a lie? or can a false Turn bring us to that happiness which is real? it must be perfect, and exact in every part; for why should we give him less than we should; who will give us more than we can desire? or how can that, which is but in part, make us shine in perfection of Glory? Last of all; it must be constant and permanent; for the crown of life is promised unto him alone, who is faithful unto death; Turn ye, Turn ye, now, suddenly; in reality, and not in appearance, Turn ye from all your evil ways; Turn never to look back again, and this is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, as the Septuagint render it, to turn for ever, and so to press forward in the ways of righteousness, till we are brought to that place of rest, where there is no evil to Turn from; but all shall turn to our Salvation.  
Thu much of the exhortation; Turn ye, Turn ye; the next is the Reason or Expostulation. For why will you die, O House of Israel.     

THE NINTH SERMON.  

PART V.  EZEKIEL 33.11. 
Turn ye, Turn ye from your evil ways. For why will you die, Oh House of Israel.  
WHY will you die? is an Obtestation, or Expostulation; I called it a reason, and good reason I should do so: for the moriemini is a good reason: that we may not die, a good reason to make us turn, but tendered to us by way of expostulation, is another reason, and puts life and efficacy into it, makes it a reason invincible, unanswerable. The Israelite, though now in his evil ways, dares not say, He will die, and therefore must lay his hand upon his mouth, and Turn.  
For God, who is truly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 free from all passion, being to deal with man subject to passion, seems to put it on; exprimit in we have here a large field to walk over; but we must bond our discourse within the compass of those observations, which first offer themselves, and without any force, or violence, may naturally be deduced from these words; and we shall first take notice of the course, and method God takes to turn us, he draws a sword against us, he threatens death, and so awakes our fear, that our fear might carry us out of evil our ways. Secondly, that God is not willing we should die; Thirdly, that he is not any way defective in the administration of the means of life. Last of all, that if we die, the fault is only in ourselves, and our own will ruins us. Why will ye die O house of Israel?  
We begin with the first, the course that God takes to turn us; he asks us why will ye die? in which we shall pass by these steps, or degrees; First, show you what fear is: Secondly, how useful it may be in our conversion. Thirdly, show it not only useful; but good and lawful, and enjoined both to those, who are yet to turn, and those who are converted already: The fear of death; the fear of God's wrath may be a motive to turn me from sin, and it may be a motive to strengthen, and uphold me in the ways of righteousness. God commends it to us, & timor iste timendus non est, and we need not be afraid of this Fear.  
Quare moriemini?  
Why will ye Die?  
And death is the King of terrors; to command our fear, that seeing death in our evil ways ready to destroy us, 
Job. 18.16.  we might look about and consider in what ways we were, and for fear of death turn from sin, which leads unto it; for thus God doth Amorem timore pellere, subdue one passion with another, drive out love with fear, the love of the world, with the fear of death; present himself unto us in divers manners according to the different operations of our affections; sometimes with his rich promises, to make us Hope, and sometimes with fearful menaces to strike us with fear, sometimes in glory to encourage us, and sometimes in a tempest, 
Clem. Alexand. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  and whirlwind to affright us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, various, and manifold in the dispensation of his goodness, that if hope drive us not to the promises, yet fear might carry us from death, and death from sin, and so at last beget a Hope; and delight, and ravish us with the glory of that, which before we could not look upon.  
Now what fear is, we may guests by Hope, for they are both hewed, as it were, out of the same Rock; and Expectation is the common matter, out of which they are framed; as Hope is nothing else but an Expectation of that, which is good, so Fear, saith the Philosopher hath its beginning 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, 
Arist. Rhet. 2. c. 6.  from the Imagination of some approaching Evil; where there is Hope, there is Fear, and where there is Fear, there is Hope; For he that doth but fear some evil may befall him, retains some Hope, that he may escape it; and he that hopes for that which is desirable, stands in some fear, that he may not reach and possess it; so that you see, Hope and Fear, though they seem to look at distance one upon the other, yet are always in Conjunction; and are levelled on the same Object, till they lose their Names, and the one end in Confidence, the other in Despair.  
Now of all the Passions of the Mind, Fear may seem to be the most improfitable; for the Wiseman will tell us, it is nothing else but the Betraying of those succours which reason offereth; 
Wisd 17.11. Curt.  and the Historian speaking of the Persians, who in their flight fling away their weapons of Defence, shuts up all with this Epiphonema, adeo pavor ipsa auxilia formidat, such is the nature of Fear, that it disarms us, and makes us not only run from Danger, but from those Helps and Succours, which might prevent and keep it off: It matures and ripens mischief, anticipates Evil, and multiplies it; and by a vain kind of Providence, gives those things a being which are not— spe jam praecipit hostem, saith the Poet, It presents our Enemy before us, when he is not near, and latcheth the Sword in our Bowels, before the Blow is given. And indeed, such many times are the effects of Fear: but as Alexander sometimes spoke of that fierce and stately Steed Bucephalus, qualem isti equum perdunt, 
Curt. l. 1.  dum per imperitiam, & mollitiem uti nesciunt? What a brave Horse is spoiled for want of manning? so may we of Fear; a most useful Passion is lost, because we do not manage and order it as we should: for we suffer it to distract and amaze, when it should poise and bias us; we make it our Enemy, when it might be our Friend, to guard and protect us; and by a Prophetical presage, or mistrust, keep off those Evils which are in the approach ready to assault us; for prudentia quaedam Divinatio est, our prudency, 
Vit. Pompon Attici.  which always carries with it Fear, is a kind of Divination. Our Passions are as a wind, and as they may thrust us upon the Rocks, so they may drive, and carry us on to the Heaven where we would be. All is in the right placing of them, passiones aestimantur objectis, our passions are as the objects are they look on; and by them they are measured, and either fall or rise in their esteem; to fear an Enemy, is cowardice; to Fear labour, is slothfulness, to fear the face of man, is something near to baseness and servility; to be afraid of a command, because it is difficult, is disobedience; but Pone Deum, saith Saint Austin, place God as the Object; and to Fear him, not only when he shines in Mercy, but when he is girded with Majesty, to fear him not only as a Father, but a Lord; nay, to fear him, when he comes with a Tempest before him, is either a virtue, or else leads unto it.  
Now to show you how Fear works, and how useful it may be to forward our Turn: we may observe first, that it works upon our memory, revives those Characters of sin, which long Custom had sullied and defaced, and makes that Deformity visible, which the delight we took in sin had veiled and hid from our sight: when the Patriarches had sold their Brother Joseph into Egypt, for Ten year's space, and above, whilst they dreaded nothing, they never seemed to have any sense of their fact, but looked upon it as a lawful, or warrantable sale, or made as light on't, as if it had been so. Joseph was sold, and they thought themselves well rid of a Dreamer: But when they were now come down into Egypt, 
Genes. 42.  and were cast into Prison, and into a fear withal, that they should be there chained us as Captives, and slaves, then, and not till then it appeared like an ill Bargain; then they could give it is right name, and call it a sin against their Brother: we are doubtless guilty of our Brother's Death, say they one to another, vers. 21. Said I not (saith Reuben) that you should not offend against the Lad? at the next verse. Thus whilst our Sun shines clear, without cloud or Tempest, all Conscience of sin is asleep, and we forget what we have done, even as soon as we have done it, and it is to us, as if it never had been, or appears in such a shape, we can delight in; but when the weather changes, and the Tempest is loud, when the pale Countenance of death is turned towards us; if then our Countenance changes, because our mind doth so; we have other thoughts, and other eyes, and by the very sight of Death, are led to the sense of sin; Now, our sin, which was buried in Oblivion, is raised again, and appears in its own shape, with that terror and Deformity, that we begin to hate, and at last, are willing to destroy it. Death hath a Terrible look, but the sight of Death may make us live, as the Brazen Serpent did Heale those, who were bitten in the Wilderness, only by being looked upon.  
For,  
Secondly, Having a sense and feeling of our sin, we begin to advise with ourselves, and ask Counsel of our Reason, which before we had left behind us, and our Thoughts, which were let lose, and sent abroad after every vanity, that came near us, are collected, and turned inward upon themselves, to revolve and see what an ill flight they made, and what poison they gathered, where they sought for Manna; how they were worse then lost, in such deceitful Objects; 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, 
Aristot. Rhet. 2. c. 6.  for Fear brings us, saith the Philosopher, to consultation. Call the Steward to account, and he is presently at his Quid faciam? what shall I do? 
Luke 16.3.  when a King goes to war, and war is a bloody, and fearful Trade, the text tells us, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, 
Luke 14.31.  he fitteth down first, and taketh Counsel. Fear is the mother of a device, and Consultation dies with fear; when we presume, Counsel is but a reproach, and is taken as an Injury; and when we despair, it is too late.  
There be three things, saith Saint Basil, which perfect and consummate every Consultation, and brings it to the end for which it was held: First, we consult; Secondly, we settle and establish our Consultations; and last of all, we gain a Constancy and perseverance in those Actions, which our Consultations have engaged, and encouraged us in; and all these three we own to Fear: Did we not Fear, we should not Consult: did not Fear urge and drive us on, we should not determine; and when this breath departeth, our Counsels fall, and all our Thoughts perish. Present Christ unto us in all his beauty, with his Spicy cheeks, and Curled locks, with honey under his Tongue, as he is described in the Canticles; present him as a Jesus, and we grow too familiar with him. Present him on the Mount at his Sermon; and perhaps, we will give him the hearing. Present him as a Rock, and we see a hole to run into, sooner than a Foundation to lay that on, which is like him, and we run on with ease in our evil ways, having such a friend, such an indulgent Saviour always in our Eye; but present him descending with a shout, and with the Trump of God, and then we begin to remember, that for all these Evil ways, we shall be brought into Judgement: Our Counsels shift, as the wind blows; and upon better motion, and riper consideration, we are ready to alter our Decrees: For these three follow close upon each other, pallemus, horrescimus, Circumspicimus, 
Plin. Epist.  saith Pliny; first Fear strikes us pale, then puts into a fit of Trembling, at last, wheels us about, to fee and consider the danger we are in, this consideration follows us, nor can we shake it off, longiorisque timoris causa Timor est; this wind increaseth as it goes, drives us to consultation, carries us on to determine, and by a continued force binds and fastens us to our Counsels. And therefore Aquinas tells us, that our Turn proceeds from the fear of punishment, tanquam à primo motu, as from that which first sets it a moving; for though true Repentance be the gift of God, yet fear works that Disposition in us, by which we Turn, when God doth Turn us; The Fear of punishment restrains us from sin; in the restraint a hope of Pardon shows itself, upon this hope we build up & strengthen our Resolution, and at last see the horror of sin, not in the punishment, but in the sin, hate our folly more than the whip, and our evil ways more than Death itself, which we call a Filial fear, which hath more of love then fear, and yet doth not shut out this Fear quite (for a good son may fear the Anger of a good Father) and thus God is pleased to condescend to our weakness, and accept this, as our reasonable service, at our hands, though our chiefest motive to serve him at first, were nothing else but a flash from the Quare moriemini? nothing else but a fear of Death.  
For in the last place; 
Bas. in Psal. 32.  this is a principal effect of the fear of punishment, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, saith Basil, as it brings us to Consultation, so is it a fair Introduction to Piety itself. Fear takes us by the hand, and is a Schoolmaster unto us, and when Fear hath well disciplined and Catechised us, than love takes us in hand, and perfects our Conversion, so that we may seem to go from Fear to Love, as from a School to an University. In the 28. of Genesis, at the Twelfth verse, Jacob sees a Ladder set upon the Earth, and the Top of it reaching up to heaven, and we may observe, that Jacob makes Fear the first step of the ladder, for when he awakes, as in an ecstasy he cries out, Quam terribilis iste locus? how dreadful is this place? verse 17. so that fear is as it were the first rung and step of the Ladder, and God on the top, and Angels Ascending and Descending; Love, and Zeal, and many Graces between. Think what we please, disgrace it if we will, and fasten to it the badge of slavery and servility, it is a blessed thing thus to fear, the first step to happiness, and one step helps us up to another, and so by degrees we are brought ad culme Sionis, to the top of the Ladder, to the Top of perfection, to God Himself, whose Majesty first wounds us with fear, and then gently binds us up, and makes us to love him; who leads us through this darkness, through this dread and terror, into so great light, makes us Tremble first, that we may at last be as mount Zion, and stand fast, and firm for ever.  
We now pass, and rise one step higher, to take a view of this fear of punishment, not only as useful, but lawful, and commanded not under the Law alone, but under the Gospel, as a motive to Turn us from sin, and as a motive to strengthen and uphold us in the ways of Righteousness, not only as a restraint from sionne; but as a preservative of Holiness, and as a help and furtherance unto us in our progress in the ways of perfection.  
And here it may seem a thing most unbefitting a Christian, who should be led rather then drawn, 
Plat. l. de Rep.  and not a Christian alone, but any moral man; and therefore Plato calls it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an illiberal and base disposition to be banished the School of morality; and our great master in Philosophy makes punishment one of the three things that belong to slaves, as the whip doth, saith Solomon, to the fools back; for to be forced into goodness, to be frighted into health, argues a disposition, which little sets by Health or goodness itself.  
But behold a greater than Plato and Aristotle, our best master, the Prince of Peace, and love himself strives to awake, and stir up this kind of fear in us, tells us of Hell, and everlasting Darkness, of a Flaming Fire, of weeping and gnashing of Teeth; presents his Father, the Father of Mercies, with a Thunderbolt in his hand, with Power to kill both body and soul, shows us our sin in a Death's Head, and in the fire of Hell, as if the way to avoid sin, were to fear Death and Hell, ad if we could once be brought to fear to die, we should not die at all. Many glorious things are spoken even of this fear; The Philosopher calls it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, 
Basan Ps. 31. Tert. de poenit. c. 6.  the bridle of our Nature; Saint Basil, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the bridle of our lusts; Tertullian, Instrumentum poenitentiae, an Instrument to work out Repentance; Pachomius placeth it, supra decem millia paedagogorum, makes it the best Schoolmaster of ten Thousand. Hearken to the Trumpet of the Gospel, be attentive to the Apostles voice, what found more frequent, then that of Terror, able to shake and divide a soul from its sin? Had Martion seen our Saviour with a whip in his hand: Had he heard him cursing the Figtree, and by that example punishing our sterility, had he weighed the many woes he pronounced against sinners, perhaps he would not have fallen into that impious conceit of two Gods; for though the dispensation have not the same aspect under the Law, as under the Gospel; yet God is the same God still, 
2 Cor. 5.11.  as terrible to sinners that will not Turn, as when he thundered from Mount Sinai; and if we will not know and understand these Terrors of the Lord, if we make not this use of them, to drive us unto Christ, and to root and build us up in him, the Gospel itself will be to us, as the Law was to the Jews, a kill Letter.  
For again, as Humane Laws, so Christ's precepts have their force and life from reward and punishment; and to this end, we find not only scripta supplicia, those woes, and menaces, which are written in the Gospel, but God hath imprinted a fear of punishment in the very hearts of men.  
Esse aliquos manes, & subterranea regna. 
Juvenal.   
That there remained punishments after life for sin, was acknowledged by the very Heathen, and we may easily be persuaded, that had not this natural domestic fear come in between, the World had been far more wicked than it is, we see many are very inclinable to deny that there is either Heaven or Hell, and would believe it, because they would have it so, many would be Atheists if they could; but a secret whisper haunts and pursues them. This may be so, there is an appointed time to die, and after that judgement may come; There can be no danger in obedience, there may be in sin, and this, though it do not make them good, yet it restrains them from being worse; quibus incentivum impunitas, timor taedium, freedom from punishment makes sin pleasant and delightsome, and so makes it more sinful; but the fear of punishment makes it irksome, brings those reluctancies and gnawings; those rebukes of Conscience, (for without it, there could be none at all) till the whip is held up, there is honey on the Harlot's lips, and we would taste them often, but that they by't like a Cockatrice: 
1 Pet. 5.6.  non timemus peccare, timemus ardere, it is no sin, we so much startle at, but Hell fire is too hot for us. And therefore Saint Peter, when he would work repentance, and Humility in us, placeth us under God's hand, Humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, which expresseth his power, his commanding Attribute; his Omniscience finds us out, his Wisdom accuseth us, his Justice condemns us, potentia punit, but 'tis his hand, his power, that punisheth us. 
Psal. 78.34.  Take away his hand, and who feareth his Justice? or regardeth his wisdom? or tarrieth for the twilight to shun his all-seeing eye? but cum occidat, when we are told, that he can kill, and destroy us, then, if ever, we return, and seek God Early.  
Again, as the fear of death may be as Physic to purge and cleanse our souls from the contagion of sin, so it may be an Antidote and preservative against it; it may raise me when I am fallen, and it may supply me with strength, that I fall not again. It is a hand to lift me up and it is an hand to lead me when I am risen inter vada & freta through all the dangers that attend me in my way; as it is an introduction to piety, 
Tract. 1. in Psalm c. 8.  so is it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, saith Gr. Nyssen, a watch, a guard upon me to keep me, that no temptation, no scandal, no stone of offence, make me turn back again into my evil ways. For we must not think that when we are Turned from our evil ways, we have left fear behind us; no, she may go along with us in the ways of Righteousness, and whisper us in the ear, that God is the Lord most worthy to be feared; she is our Companion, and she leaves us not, nor can we shake her off, till we are brought to our Journeys end. Our love, such as it is, may well consist with Fear, 
Chrysost. l. 1. de compunct. c. 4. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  with the Fear of Judgement. Look upon the blessed Saints, David, a man after Gods own heart, yet he had, saith Chrysost. the memory of God's Judgements written in his very heart; his thoughts were busied with it, his Meditations fixed here, and it forced from him à Domine nè in furore, Correct me not O Lord, in thy angeer, nor chastise me in thy wrath. Hezekiah, one of the best of the Kings of Judah, yet walked in the bitterness of his soul, did mourn like a Dove, 
Isa. 38.14.  and chatter like a Crane. Saint Paul builds up a Tribunal, and calls all men to behold it; 
Rom. 14.10.  We shall all stand before the Judgement seat of Christ; Saint Hierom had the last Trump always sounding in his ears, and declaring to Posterity the strictness of his life, his Tears, his fasting, his solitariness, confesses of himself, 
Hier. 1. Tom. ep. 141.  Ille ego, qui ob Gehennae metum tali me carcere damnaveram Scorpiorum tantum socius & ferarum— I that condemned myself to so strait a prison, as to have no better companions than Scorpions and wild Beasts, for fear of Hell and Judgement did all this, and was not ashamed to acknowledge, that not so much the love unto it, nor the Author of it, as the dread of Hell, and punishment confined and kept him constant in the practice of it. And what should I say more? for the time would fail me to tell you of other Saints of God, who through fear wrought Righteousness, obtained Promises, out of weakness were made strong: Behold love in its highest elevation, in its very Zenith; behold it, when it was stronger than Death; look upon the Glorious Army of Martyrs, they had trial of cruel mockings and scouragings, yea moreover, of Bonds, and Imprisonment, they were stoned, and slain with the sword; And greater love than this hath no man, saith our Saviour, than this, that a man lay down his life for his friend; and yet Saint Ambrose, upon the 118. Psalm will tell us, that this great love was upheld and kept in life. by this gale of wind, by Fear. That the fear of one Death was swallowed up in the fear of another; the fear of a temporal, ion the fear of an Eternal. The bloody Pagans, to weaken their faith, 
Pont. Diac. vit. Cypr.  urged the fear of present Death, Consul tibi; Noli animam tuam perdere, favour yourself, cast not away your life, Reverence your age, and these they thought suggestions strong enough to shake their Constancy and Resolution; but the consideration of the wrath of God, and eternal separation from him did strengthen and establish them: what is my breath to Eternity? what is the fire of Persecution, to the fury of God's wrath? what is the rack to hell? & sic animas posuerunt, and with these Thoughts, they laid down their lives, and were crowned with Martyrdom.  
We cannot now think, that these Martyrs sinned in setting before their eyes the horror of Death, and fear of Hell; or think their love the less, because they had some fear, or that their love was lost in that, which was ordained and commanded as a means to preserve it. Their love, we see, was strong and intensive, and held out against that, which laid them in the dust; but lest it should faint, and abate, they borrowed some heat, even from the fire of Hell; and made use of those Curses, which God hath denounced against all those, who persevere not to the end. The best of men are but men, but flesh and blood subject to infirmities, so that in this our spiritual warrfare, and Navigation, we should shipwreck often, did we not lay hold of the Anchor of Fear, as well as of that of Hope; Each Temptation might shake us, each vanity amaze us, each suggestion drive us upon the Rocks; but Anchora cordis, pondus timoris, saith Gregory, the weight of fear, as an Anchor poises us, 
Greg. l 6. Mer. c. 27. Ecclus. 9.13.  and when the storm is high, settles and fastens us to our resolutions. We walk in the midst of snares, saith the Wise man, and if we swerve never so little, one snare or other takes us; for there be many: a snare in our lusts, a snare in the object, a snare in our Religion, and a snare in our very love, and if fear come not in to cool and allay it, to guide and moderate it, our love may grow too warm, too saucy and familiar, and end in a bold presumption. And therefore Saint Paul, in that his parable of the Natural, and wild Olive, advising the new engrafted Gentile not to wax bold against the root, 
Rom. 11.20.  makes fear a remedy, be not high minded, saith he, trust not to your love of him, nor be overbold with God's love to you, because he hath grafted you in; but fear; and he gives his reason, for if God spared not the natural branches, much less will he spare you, verse 21. Fear then of being cut off, If Saint Paul's reason be good, is the best means to repress in us all proud conceits, and highness of mind, which may whither the most fruitful, and flourishing branch, and make it fit for nothing, but the Fire.  
Thus is Fear necessary, and prescribed to all sorts of men, to them that are fallen, that they may rise, and to them that are risen, that they may not fall again; for them that are weak, that they may be strong; and to those that are strong, that their strength deceive them not. And yet an opinion is taken up in the world; That Fear was only for mount Sinai; that it vanished with that smoke, and was never heard of more, when that Trumpet was laid by: we will not have this word spoken to us any more: There is no blackness, nor Darkness, nor tempest in the Gospel, but all is to be done out of pure love; That we being delivered from our enemies, may serve him without fear. Nor is this conceit of yesterday, but the devil hath made use of it in all Ages, as of an Engine to undermine, and blow up the Truth itself, and so supplant the Gospel, which is the wisdom of God unto salvation; that so he might 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, as Gr. Nyssen speaks, sport with us, in our evil ways, lead us on in our dance and wantonness of sin, and so carry us along with music and melody to our Destruction.  
Tertullian in his book de Praescriptionibus adversus haeret. mentions a sort of Heretics, 
c. 43.  who denied that God was not to be feared at all, unde illis libera omnia, & soluta, whence they took a liberty to sin, and let lose the reins to all impiety. Saint Hierom relates the very same of the Marcionites, and Gnostics, and it is probable Tertullian meant them; 
In 4. Hos.  for say they, jis, qui fidem habent nihil Timendum. If we have Faith, we may bid Fear adieu, how many, and how foul soever our sins be: God regards what we believe, not what we do; and if our faith be true, the obliquity of our Actions cannot hurt us. After these ex eodem semine, 
J. Gers. T. 1.  from the same root sprung up the Begardi, and Begardae, and others, who from their opinion, that no sin could endanger the state of those, who were predestinated, and Justified, took their name, and were called praedestinatianis, the Praedestinarians. After these; the Libertines breathed forth their Blasphemy, with the like Impudence, whom Calvin wrote against, who made sin to be nothing else but fancy and opinion; Regeneration, a deposition and putting off all Conscience, 
Calvin. contra Errores Anabaptist arum.  a casting off all fear and scruple, and a returning into Paradise, where it was a sin to Judge between good and Evil: who if they saw a man appalled with the checks of Conscience, would cry out; Oh Adam adhuc aliquid cernis? Oh Adam, dost thou yet see, and discern any thing? The old man is not yet crucified in thee; If they saw any trembling, or speaking sadly of the judgements of God, would reprove, and pass this censure upon them; That they had yet a Taste and relish of the Apple; That that morsel would choke them. If they saw any man displeased with himself, and cast down because of his sins, they called it, The abiding of sin in them, and a Captivity under the sense, and motions of the flesh. With them, Sin, The old man, The flesh, were nothing but in opinion; and not to think of sin, to put off this Opinion, was to put on the New man: and amongst us, There have been some men, so bold, or rather so frantic, as to profess it; and too many so live, as it were true; for there be more Libertines, than those, that go under that name.  
Thus hath the Devil in all ages strove, and made it is Masterpiece to pluck up Fear by the very roots, that no seed of it might remain; to remove Custodem inocentiae, as Cyprian calls it, 
Epist. ad Domasum.  this keeper and preserver of Innocency, and all other Virtues, and like a subtle Captain, first sets upon the Watch, that he may with the more ease enter the Soul of man, and so rob and spoil him of all those riches, and endowments, which are the only price of bliss and Eternity: And in these latter days, he hath used the same Art, hath set up Faith, and Love, against Fear; the Gospel against Christ; and the Spirit against himself; That so Faith might die; and love wax cold; That the good tidings might make us forget our Duty, and the Spirit of Adoption, by which we cry Abba Father, blot out the memory of that lesson, which hath declared his Power, and Taught us, that he is a Lord.  
Indeed, a weak Error it is, and it is an open and casy observatition, That they who please and hug themselves in it, are very weak, even Children in understanding. Gerson, the devour Schoolman tells us, 
Mulieres omnes propter infirmitaetem consilii m●jores nostri in Tutorum potestate esse voluerunt. Cicero pro Mutaena.  it is most commonly in Women, quarum aviditas pertinacior in assectu, fragilior in cognition. Whose affections commonly outrun their understanding, who affect more than they know, and are then most inflamed, when they have least light, and it is in men too, and too many, who are as fond of their groundless Fancies, and ill-built Opinions, as the weakness of that sex, could possibly make them, are as weak as the weakest of women, and have more need of the bit and Bridle, than the Beasts that perish; what greater weakness can there be then to follow a blind guide, and deliver ourselves up to our Fancy, and affective Notions, and make them Masters of our Reason, and the only Interpreters of that word, which should be a lamp to our feet, and a light to our paths? For if we check not our Fancy and Affections, they will run madding after shadows and apparitions, They will show us nothing but Peace in the Gospel, nothing but Love in Christianity; Nothing but Joy in the Holy Ghost. They will set our Love and Joy on Wheels, and then we are strait carried up to Heaven in these fiery Chariots. One is Elioas, Another John Baptist; Another Christ himself. If the Virgin Mary have an Exultat, they have a jubilee. If Saint Paul be in the Spirit, They are above it, and right Reason too; and the Spirit is theirs, if he put on that shape, which best likes them. If he be a Spirit of Counsel; we are his Secretaries of his Closet; and can tell what he did before all Times, and Number over his Decrees at our Finger's ends: If a Spirit of strength, we bid defiance to Principalities and Powers. If a Spirit of Wisdom, we are filled with him, the wisemen, the sages of the World, though no man could ever say so, but ourselves; If a Spirit of joy, we are in an Ecstasy; if of Love, we are on fire: But if he be Spiritus Timoris, a Spirit of Fear, there we leave him, and are at Odds with him; we seem to know him not; and we cannot Fear at all, because we are bold to think that we have the Spirit.  
'Tis true; whilst we stand thus affected, a Spirit we have; but 'tis a Spirit of illusion, which troubles and distorts our Intellectuals, and makes us look upon the Gospel, ex adverso situ, on the wrong side, on that which may seem to flatter our infirmities, but not on that which may cure them; and as Tully told his friend, That he did not know, Totum Caesarem, all of Caesar; so we know not totum Christum, all of Christ: we know, and consider him as a Saviour, but not as a LORD, we know him in the Riches of his Promises; but not in the Terror of his Judgements; know him in that life, he purchased for Repentant sinners, but not in that death he threatens to Unbelievers.  
For to let pass the Law of works, 
Heb. 12.20.  we dare not come so near as to touch at that; for we cannot endure that which was commanded; Let us well weigh and consider the Gospel itself, which is the Law of Faith; was not that established and confirmed with promises of Eternal life, and upon penalty of Eternal Death? In the Gospel we are told of weeping and gnashing of Teeth, of a condition, worse them to the a Millstone hanged about our necks, and to be thrown into the bottom of the Sea, and by no other, then by the Prince of Peace, then by Christ himself, who would never have put this fear in us, if he had known, that our Love had had strength enough to bring us to him. And therefore in the Tenth of St. Matthews Gospel, at 28. verse, he teacheth us how we shall fear, Rectâ methodo, he teacheth us to be perfect methodists in Fear, & that we misplace not our Fear upon any Earthly Power, he sets up a Ne Timete, Fear not them that can kill the Body, and when they have done that, have done all, and can do no more; and having taken away one fear, he establisheth another, But fear him who can both cast Body and Soul into Hell fire; and that we might not forget it (for such troublesome guests lodge not long in our memory) he drives it home, with an Etiam Dico, Yea, I say unto you, fear him. Now Him denotes a Person, and no more, and then our fear may be Reverence, and no more; It may be Love, it may be Fancy, it may be nothing; but qui potest is equivalent to quia potest, and is the reason why we must fear him; even because he can punish. And this, I hope may free us from the Imputation of sin, if our Love be blended with some Fear, and if in our Obedience we have an eye to the hand that may strike us, as well as to that which may fill us with good things; and if Christ, who is the Wisdom of the Father, think it fit to make the Terror of Death an argument to move us, we cannot have Folly laid to our charge, if we be moved with the Argument: Fac, Fac, saith Saint Austin, vel timore poenae, si non Potes adhuc amore justitiae. Do it man, Do it, if thou canst not, yet for Love, of Justice, yet for fear of punishment.  
I know that of Saint Austin is true, Brevis differentia legis & Evangelii Amor & Timor; Love is proper to the Gospel, and Fear to the Law; but 'tis Fear of Temporal punishment, not of Eternal, for that may sound to both, but is loudest in the Gospel: The Law had a whip to fright us, and the Gospel hath a Worm to Gnaw us. I know that the Beauty of Christ in that great Work of Love, the work of our Redemption, should transport us beyond ourselves, and make us as the Spouse in the Canticles is said to be, even sick with love; but we must consider, not what is due to Christ, but what we are able to pay him, and what he is willing to Accept; not what so great a Benefit might challenge at our hands, but what our Frailty can lay down; for we are not in Heaven already, but passing towards it with Fear, and trembling; And he that brings forth a Christian in these colours of Love, without any mixture of Fear, doth but (as it was said of the Historian) votum accomodare non historiam, present us rather with a wish, than an History, and Character out the Christian, as Xenophon did Cyrus, Non qualis est, sed qualis esse deberet, not what he is, but what he should be. I confess, thus to fear Christ, thus to be urged and chased to Happiness, is an Argument of Imperfection: but we are Men, not Angels: We are not in heaven already, we are not yet perfect, and therefore have need of this kind of remedy, as much need certainly, as our first Parents had in Paradise, who before they took the forbidden fruit, might have seen Death written and engraved on the Tree, and had they observed it as they ought to have done, had not forfeited the Garden for one Apple: had this Fear walked along with them before the cool of the Day, before the rushing wind, they had not heard it, nor hide themselves from God: in a word, had they Feared, they had not fell; for they fell with this Thought, that they should not fall, that they should not die at all: Imperfection, though it be to Fear, yet 'tis such an Imperfection, that leads to perfection; Imperfection though it be to Fear, yet, I am sure, it is a greater Imperfection to sin, and not to fear. It might be wished perhaps, that we were tied and knit unto our God, quibusdam internis commerciis, as the devout School-man speaks, with those inward ligaments of Love, and Joy, and Admiration; that we had a kind of familiar acquaintance and intercourse with him; That as our Alms and Prayers, and fasting came up before him, to show him what we do on earth; so there were no imperfection in us, but that God might approach so nigh unto us with the fullness of Joy, to tell us, what he is preparing for us; that neither the Fear of Hell, nor the Hope of Heaven and our Salvation, but the Love of God and Goodness, were the only cause of our cleaving to him; That we might love God, because he is God, and hate sin, because it is sin, and for no other reason; that we might with Saint Paul, wish the increase of God's Glory, though with that heavy condition of our own Reprobation: But this is such an Heroic spirit, to which every man cannot rise, though he may at last rise as high as Heaven; this is such a condition, which we can hardly hope for, whilst we are in the flesh: we are in the body, not out of the body; we struggle with doubts, and difficulties; Ignorance and Infirmity are our Companions in our way, and in this our state of Imperfection, contenti simus hoc Catone, 
Dictum Augusti cum hortaretur ferenda esse praesentia qualiacunque sunt. Suet. Octau. August. c. 87.  we must be content to use such means, and Helps, as the Lawgiver himself will allow of; and not cast off fear, upon a Fancy that our Love is perfect (for this savours more of an Imaginary, Metaphysical subtlety, of a kind of extaticall affectation of Piety, than the plain and solid knowledge of Christian Religion) but continue our Obedience, and carry on our perseverance with the Remembrance of our last end, with this consideration; That as under the Law, there was a curse pronounced to them that fulfil it not; so under the Gospel, there is a flaming fire to take vengeance of them that obey it not. 2. Thess. 1.8.  
It was a good censure of Tully, which he gave of Cato, in one of his Epistles. Thou canst not, saith he to his friend, love and Honour Cato more than I do; but yet this I observe in him, optimo animo utens, & summâ fide nocet interdum Reip. he doth endamage the Commonwealth, but with an Honest mind, and great Fidelity; 
l. 2. ad Attic. ep. 1.  for he gives sentence, as if he lived in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Platonis, non in faece Romuli, in Plato's Commonwealth, and not in the dregs, and Rascaltry of Romulus; And we may pass the same censure on these seraphical Perfectionists, who will have all done out of pure Love, nothing out of Fear; They remember not, that they are in fraece Adami, the offspring of an Arch-rebel, that their father was an Amorite, and their mother an Hittite, (and that the want of this Fear threw them from that state of Integrity, in which they were created; and by that out of Paradise) and so with great ostentation of love, hinder the Progress of Piety, and setting up to themselves an Idea of Perfection, take off our Fear, which should be as the hand to wind up the Plummet, which should continue the motion of our Obedience; the best we can say of them, is, summâ fide, & pio animo nocent Ecclesiae; If their mind be pious, and answer the great show they make, then with a Pious mind they wrong and trouble the Church of Christ.  
For suppose I were a Paul, and did love Christ as Cato did Virtue, because I could not otherwise: 
Nunquam recte fecit ut faces videretur, sed quià aliter facere non poterat. Vell. ratere. l. 2. Hist.  suppose I did fear sin more than Hell, and had rather be damned, then commit it; suppose that every thought, word, and work were Amoris foetus, the issues of my Love; yet I must not upon a special favour build a general Doctrine, and because love is best, make Fear unlawful, make it sin to fear that punishment, the Fear of which might keep me from sin; for this were in Saint Paul's phrase 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, to put a stumbling-block in our Brother's way; with my love, to overthrow his fear; that so at last both Fear and Love may fall to the ground: for is there any that will fear sin for punishment, if it be a sin to Fear? What's the language of the world now? we hear of nothing, but filial fear; and it were a good hearing, if they would understand themselves (for this doth not exclude the other, but is upheld by it:) we are as sure of happiness, as we are of Death, but are more persuaded of the Truth of the one, then of the other; more sure to go to heaven, then to die, and yet Death is the gate, which must let us in; we are already partakers of an Angelical Estate; we prolong our life in our own Thoughts, to a kind of Eternity, and yet can fear nothing; we challenge a kind of familiarity with God, and yet are willing to stay yet a while longer from him: we sport with his Thunder, and play with his Hailstones and Coals of fire: we entertain him as the Roman Gentleman did the Emperor Augustus, 
Macrobius in Saturnal.  coenâ parcâ & quasi quotidianâ, with course and Ordinary fare, as Saul in the 15. of the first of Sam. with the vile, and refuse, not with the fatlings, and best of the sheep and Oxen; Did we dread his Majesty, or think he were Jupiter vindex, a God of Revenge, with a Thunderbolt in his hand, we should not be thus bold with him, but fear, that in wrath, and Indignation he should reply, as Augustus did, Non putaram me tibi fuisse tam familiarem; I did not think I had made myself so familiar with my Creature.  
I know the Schools distinguish between a servile, and Initial, and a Filial fear; there is a Fear, by which we fear not the fault, but the punishment, and a fear which feareth the punishment, and fault withal; and a Fear, which fears no punishment at all; I know Aquinas puts a difference between servile fear, and the servility of fear, as if he would take the soul from Socrates, and yet leave him a man: 
Senec ep.  These are niceties more subtle than solid, in quibus ludit animus, magis quam proficit, which may occasion discourse, but not instruct our understanding: 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, As near as we can, let us take things as they are in themselves, and not as they are beat out, and fashioned by the work, and business of our wits; and than it will be plain; that though we be sons, yet we may fear, fear that Evil which the Father presents before us, to fright us from it; that we may make the fear of Death an Argument to Turn us, and a strong motive to confirm us in the course of our Obedience; that it is no servility to perform some part of Christ's service upon those terms, which he himself allows, and hath prescribed to us. Leet us call it by what name we please (for indeed we have miscalled it, and brought it in as slavish and servile, and so branded the command of Christ himself) yet we shall find it a blessed Instrument to safeguard and improve our Piety; we shall find, that the best way to escape the Judgements of God, is, to draw them near, even to our Eyes; For Hell is a part of our Creed, as well as Heaven; his threaten are as loud as his promises; and could we once fear Hell as we should, we should not fear it. For I ask, may we serve God, sub intuitu mercedis, with respect unto the reward? it is agreed upon on all sides, that we may (for Moses had respect unto the recompense of the reward, and Christ himself did look upon the Joy that was set before him: 
Heb. 11.26. Heb. 12.2. ) why then not sub intuitu vindictae, upopn the fear of punishment? will God accept that service which is begun, and wrought out by the virtue and influence of the reward? and will he cast off that servant, which had an eye upon his hand, and observed him as a Lord? why then hath God propounded both these, both reward and punishment, and bid us work on in his Vineyard, with an eye on them both, if we may not as well fear him, when he threatens, as run to meet him, when he comes towards us, and his reward with him? let us then have recourse to his Mercy-seat, but let us tremble also, and fall down before his Tribunal, and behold his Glory and Majesty in both.  
But it may be said, and some have thought it their duty to say it, that this belongs to the wicked, to the Goats to fear, but when Christ speaks to his Disciples, to his Flock, the language is, Nolite timere, fear not little flock, 
Luke. 12.32.  for it is your Father's will to give you a Kingdom; 'Tis true, it is your Father's will to give it you, and you have no reason to fear, or mistrust him; but this doth not exclude the fear of the wrath of God, nor the use of those means, which the Father himself hath put into our hands; not that Fear, which may be one help and Advance towards that violence, which must take it: For our Saviour doth not argue thus; It is your Father's will to give you a Kingdom; Therefore persevere not for any fear of punishment; but the Fear, which Christ forbids, is the Fear of distrustfulness, when we fear as Peter did upon the Waters, when he was ready to sink, and had therefore a check, and Rebuke from our Saviour, why fearest thou, oh thou of little Faith? so that fear not little Flock, is nothing else but a dissuasion from infidelity. A Soldier, that puts no Confidence in himself, yet may in his Captain, if he be a Hannibal, or a Caesar, (for an Army of Hearts may conquer (said Iphicrates) if a Lion be the leader) so though we may something doubt, and mistrust, because we may see much wanting to the perefection of our Actions, yet we must raise our diffidence with this persuasion, that the promise is most certain, and that the power of Heaven and Hell cannot infringe or null it. We may mistrust ourselves; for of ourselves we are Nothing; but not the Promises of CHRIST, for they are yea, and Amen.  
But they are ready to reply, that the Apostle St. Paul is yet more plain, Rom. 8.15. where he tells us, That we have not received the spirit of Bondage, to fear again, but the Spirit of Adoption, by which we cry Abba Father. And it is most true, that we have not received that Spirit; for we are not under the Law, but under Grace, we are not Jews, but Christians; nor do we fear again, as the Jews feared, whose eye was upon the basket, and the sword, who were curbed, and restrained by the fear of present punishment; and whose greatest motives to Obedience, were drawn from Temporal respects, and Interests; who did fear the Plague, Captivity, the Philistim, the Catterpillar, ad Palmerworme, and so did many times forbear, that which their lusts, 
2 Cor. 4.18.  and irregular Appetites were ready to join with; we have not received such a spirit, for the Gospel directs our look not to those things which are seen, but to those things which are not seen, and shows us yet a more excellent way; But we have received the Spirit of Adoption, we are received into that Family where little care is taken for the meat, that perisheth, where the world is made an Enemy, where we must leave the morrow to care for itself, and work out our Salvation with fear and trembling, where we must not fear what man, but what God can do unto us, observe his hand, as that hand which can raise us up as high as Heaven, and throw us down to the lowest Pit; love him as a Father, and fear to offend him; love, and kiss the Son, lest he be angry; serve him without fear of any evil that can befall us here in our way; of any Enemy that can hurt us, and yet fear him as our Lord and King; for in this his grant of liberty, he did not let us lose against himself, nor put off his Majesty, that we should be so bold with him, as not to serve, but to disobey him without fear; nor doth this cut off our Filiation, our relation to him: for a good son may fear the wrath of God, and yet cry Abba, Father.  
But then again, we are told in Saint john, In caritate non est timor; that there is no fear in love, 
1 John 4.18.  but perfect love casteth out all fear, and when he saith All fear, he excepteth none; no, not the fear of punishment. 
l. de fugâ in persecutione.  I know Tertullian Interpreting this Text, makes this fear to be nothing else, but that lazy Fear, which is begot by a vain and unnecessary contemplation of Difficulties; the fear of a man, that will not set forward in his journey, for fear of some Lion, some perilous Beast, some horrible hardship in the way; and this is true, but not ad textum, nor doth it reach Saint john's meaning; which may be gathered out of the third Chapter and 16. verse, where he makes it the duty of Christians, to lay down their lives for the Brethren, as Christ laid down his life for them; and this we shall be ready to do, if our love be perfect, cast off all fear, and lay down our lives for them; For true love will suffer all things, and is stronger, than Death; but love doth not cast out the fear of God's wrath, for this doth no whit impair our love to him, but is rather the means to improve it, when we do our duty, we have no reason to fear his Anger, but yet we must always fear him, that we may go on and persevere unto the end; he will not punish us for our Obedience, and so we need not fear him, but if we break it off, he will punish us, and this thought may strengthen, and establish us in it: Let us therefore Fear, lest a promise being left us of entering into his rest, any of us should come short of it, Heb. 4.1. But we may draw an answer out of the words themselves, as they lie in the Text; for 'tis true indeed, Charity casteth out all fear, but not simul & semel, not at once, but by degrees: As that waxeth, our fear wanes, as that gathers strength, our fear is enfeebled; & perfecta foras mittit, when our Love is perfect, it casteth it out quite. If our Sanctification were as total, as it is universal; were our obedience like that of the Angels, and could never fail, we should not then need the sight of Heaven to allure us, or God's Thunder to affright us, but it being only in part, though in every part, the best of Christians in this state of imperfection, may look up upon the Moriemini, make use of a Deaths-head, and make Gods Promises, and Threaten as subordinate means to concur with the principal; as the Butteresses to help to support the building, that it do not swerve, whilst the foundation of love and Faith keep it, that it do not sink. For a strange thing it may seem; that when with great zeal we cry down that perfection of degrees, and admit of none but that of parts, we should be so refined, and sublimate, as not to admit of the least tincture and admission of Fear.  
Now in the next place, as Fear may consist with love, so it may with Faith, and with Hope itself, which seems to stand in oppositition with it. For first, Faith apprehends all the Attributes of God, and eyes his threaten, as well as his Promises, and God hath established and fenced in his Precepts with them both; if he had not proposed them both as objects for our Faith, why doth he yet complain? why doth he yet threaten? And if we will observe it, we shall find some Impressions of Fear, not only in the Decalogue, but in our Creed. judicare vivos & mortuos, to judge both the quick and the dead, are words which sound with terror, and yet an Article of our Belief; And we must not think it concerns us to believe it, and no more: Agenda, and credenda are not at such a distance, but that we may learn our Practics in our Creed. His Omnipotence both comforts, and affrights me; his Mercy keeps me from despair, and his Justice from presumption; but then his coming to judge both the quick and the dead, is my solicitude, my anxiety, my fear. Nor must we Imagine, that, because the Faith, which gives assent to these Truths, may be merely Historical, this Article concerns the justified Person no more, than a bare Relation, or a history: for the Fear of Judgement is so fare from destroying Faith in the justified person, that it may prove a sovereign means to preserve it, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, 
Bas. in Ps. 32.  as Basil speaks, to order and compose our Faith, which is ready enough to take an unkind heat, if fear did not cool, and Temper it. In Prosperity, David is at his non movebor, 
Ps. 30.6.  I shall never be moved; Before the storm came, Peter was so bold, as to dare and challenge all the Temptations, that could assault him, Etsi omnes, non ego, although all men deny thee, yet not I, and was puzzled, 
Matth. 26.  and fell back at two or three words from a silly Maid: To keep us from such distempers, it will be good to set God's judgements always before our eyes.  
And as Faith, so Hope, which is as the blood of the soul, to keep it in life and cheerfulness, may be overheated; our Expectation may prove unsavoury, if it be not seasoned with some grains of this salt; and Hope, like strong wine, may intoxicate and stupify our sense, if, as with water, we do not mix and temper it with this Fear: 
Psal. 115.11.  And therefore the Prophet David makes a rare composure of them both, Timentes Confidite, ye that Fear the Lord, trust in the Lord; as if, where there were no fear, there were no confidence, and without fear, there were a strange Ataxy and disorder in the soul, and our hope would breathe out itself, and be no more Hope, but presumption. Navigamus, saith Saint Hierom, spei velo; we hoist up the sails of Hope: now if the sails be too full, there may be as much danger in the sail, as in a Rock, and not only a Temptation, but our hope may wrack us: Then our Hope Sails on in an even Course, when fear, as a contrary wind, shortens and stays her; than inter sinus & scopulos, 
Psal. 115.11. Tert. de Idol. c. ult.  she passeth by every Rock, and by every reach, tuta, si cauta: secura, si sollicita, safe if wary, and secure, if solicitous.  
To recollect all, and conclude; Thus may Fear temper our Love that it be not too bold; our faith, that it be not too forward, and our hope, that it be not too confident; make our Love Reverend, our Faith discreet, and our hope cautelous, that so we may go on in a straight and even course, with all the Riches and substance of our Faith from Virtue to Virtue, from one degree of perfection to another. I made Fear but a Buttress, 
Tert. de cult. Foem. c. 2.  Tertullian calls it Fundamentum, the Foundation of these three Theological Virtues, Faith, Hope and Charity; and when is the Foundation most necessary? not when the Timber is squaring, and the walls rising, but when it is Arched and vaulted, and compact by its several contignations, and made into an house: Then, not the Rain, and the wind, and the floods, but if the Foundation be not sure, mole suâ ruit, it's own weight will shake and disjoint, and throw it down: Then, when we are shaped, and framed, and built up to be Temples of the holy Ghost, then, Si non in timore Domini tenueris te instanter, if thou keep not thyself diligently in the Fear of the Lord, in the Fear of his displeasure, his wrath, and in the fear of the last account, this house, this Temple will soon be overthrown. For as the Temple in the first of Ezra the Scribe, 
Ecclus. 27.3.  was said to be built in great joy, and great mourning, that they could not discern the shout of joy, for the noise of weeping: So our spiritual building is raised, 
Inter Apocr. cap. 5. ver. 64, 65.  and supported with great hope, and great fear, and it may be sometimes we shall not discern which is greatest, our fear, or our hope: but when we are strong, then are we weak; when we are rich, then are we poor; when we hope, than we fear; and our weakness upholds our strength, our poverty preserves our wealth, and our Fear tempers our hope, that our strength overthrow us not; that our riches beggar us not; that our hope overwhelm us not; quantò magis crescimus, tanto magis timemus, the more we increase in Virtue, the more we Fear. Thus manente Timore, stat aedificium, whilst this Butteresse, this Foundation of Fear lasts, the house stands: Thus we work out our Salvation with Fear and Trembling.  
To conclude then, I speak not this to dead in any soul any of those Comforts, which faith, or Love, or Hope have begotten in them, or to choke and stifle any fruit or effect of the Spirit of love: No; I pray with S. Paul, that your love may abound 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, 
Phil. 1.9.  yet more and more, but as it follows there, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, in Knowledge and in all Judgement; that you may discern things that differ one from another, a Fancy from a Reality; a flash of Love, from the pure flame of love; a notion of Faith, from a true Faith; and hope from presumption. For how many sin? how few think of punishment? how many offend God, and yet call themselves his 〈◊〉? how many are wilful in their disobedience, and yet per●…●…ory in their hope? how many run on in their evil ways, 〈◊〉 leave sear behind them, which never overtakes them, but is furthest off, when they are nearest to their journey's end, and within a step of the Tribunal? For that which made them sinful, makes them senseless, and they easily subborn false comforts; the ●…knes of the flesh, which they never resisted, and the Mercy of God, which they ever abused, to chase away all fear; and so they depart (we say) in peace, but are lost for ever. 
Curtius' de Alexand.  For as the Historian observes of men in place, and Authority, Cum se fortunae permittunt etiam naturam dediscunt, when they rely wholly upon their greatness and Authority, they lose their very Nature, and turn Savage, and quite forget that they are men; in like manner it befalls these spiritualised men, who build up to themselves a pillar of assurance, and lean and rest themselves upon it, they lose their nature, and reason, and forget to fear, or be disconsolate, and become like those whom the Philosopher calls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, because their boast was, they did not fear a Thunderbolt.  
Fear not them that can kill the body, saith our Saviour; whom do they fear else? who hath believed our report? or to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? That arm which breaketh the Cedars of Libanus in pieces: That Arm, which only doth wondrous works, is ever lifted up, and we sport, and walk delicately under it, when we tremble, and Couch under that, which is as ready to whither, as to strike. Behold Dust and Ashes invested with Power: Behold man, who is of as near kin to the worm and Corruption, as ourselves, and see how he awes us, and bounds us, and keeps us in on every side; If he say, Do this, we do it, Subscribe to that as a Truth, which we know to be false, make our yea, nay, and our nay, yea; renounce our understandings, and enslave our wills, change our Religion, as we do our clothes, and fit them to the Times and Fashion; pull down resolutions, cancel Oaths; be votaries to day, and break to morrow; surrender up our souls and bodies; Deliver up our Conscience, in the midst of all its Cry and Gainsaying, and lay it down at the foot of a fading, transitory Power, which breathes itself forth as the wind, whilst it seeks to destroy, which threatens, strikes, and then is no more. When this Lion roars, every man is afraid, is transelemented, unnaturalized, unmanned, is made wax to receive any impression from a mighty, but mortal hand; and shall not the God of heaven and earth, who can dash all this Power to nothing, deserve our fear? shall we be so familiar with him, as to contemn him? so love him, as to hate him? shall a shadow, a vapour, awe us; and shall we stand out against Omnipotency and Eternity itself? shall sense, brutish sense prevail with us more, than our Reason or Faith? and shall we cross the method of God, make it our Wisdom to fear man, and count it a sin to fear God? who is only to be feared? this were to be wiser, than Wisdom itself, which is the greatest folly in the World.  
I have brought you therefore to this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, to this School of fear, set up the Moriemini, showed you a Deaths-Head to discipline and Catechise you, that you may not die, but live, and Turn from your evil ways, and Turn unto him, who hath the keys of hell and of Death, who as he is a Saviour, so is he also a Judge, and hath made Fear one Ingredient in his Physic, not only to purge us, but to keep us in a healthful Temper, and Constitution.  
And to this, 
Promptuor. Moral.  if not the danger of our souls, yet the noise of those who love us not, may awake us. Stapleton, a Learned man, but a malicious Fugitive, lays it as a charge against the Preachers of the Reformed Churches, that they are copious and large in setting forth the Mercies of God, but they pass over Graviora Evangelit, the harsher; but most necessary passages of the Gospel, suspenso pede, lightly, and as it were on their Tiptoes, and go softly, as if they were afraid to awake their hearers: That we are mere solifidians, and rely upon a reed, a hollow and an empty faith. Bellarmine is loud, that we do per contemplationem volare, hover as it were on the wings of Contemplation, and hope to go to heaven in a Dream. Pamelius in his notes upon Tertullian, is bold upon it, That the Primitive Church did Anathematise us in the Marcionists, and Gnostics, and if they were Heretics, than we are so. And what shall we now say? Recrimination is rather an objection, than an Answer, and it will be against all rules of Logic, to conclude our selves Good, because they are worse; or that we have no Errors, because they have so many, and that none can Err but he, that says he cannot, and for which we call him Antichrist; This bandying of Censures and Curses hath been held up too long with some loss and injury to Religion, on both sides; Our best way certainly to confute them, is by our practice; so to live, that all men say, The Fear of God is in us of a Truth, to wove Love and Fear into one Piece, to serve the Lord in fear, and rejoice in Trembling, 
Hilar. in Fs. 2.  ut sit timor exultans, & exultatio tremens; that there may be Trembling in our Joy, and Joy in our Fear: not to Divorce Jesus from the LORD, nor the Lord from Jesus; not to Fear the Lord the less for Jesus, nor love Jesus the less for the Lord, but to join them both together, and place Christ in the midst; and then there will be a pax vobis, peace unto us; his Ointment shall drop upon our Love, that it be not too bold, and distil upon our Fear, that it faint not, and end in despair; that our Love may not consume our Fear, nor our Fear chill our love: but we shall so Love him, that we do not Despair, so Fear him, that we do not presume, That we may Fear him as a Lord, and love him as Jesus; and then when he shall come in Glory to Judge both the quick and the dead, we shall find him a Lord, but not to affright us; and a Jesus to save us; our Love shall be made perfect; All doubting taken from our Faith; nay, Faith itself shall be done away, and the fear of Death shall be swallowed up in Victory, and we who have made such use of Death in its representation, shall never die, but live for evermore.  
And this we have learned from the Moriemini: Why will you Die?    

THE TENTH SERMON.  

PART VI.  EZEKIEL 33.11. 
— why will you die, Oh House of Israel?  
WE have lead you through the Chambers of Death; through the school of Discipline; The School of fear. For why will ye Die? Look upon Death, and fear it; and you shall not Die at all.  
Thus fare are we gone.  
We come now, ad domum Israelis, to the House of Israel: Why will ye die oh house of Israel? For to name Israel, is an Argument: Take them as Israel, or take them as the House of Israel: Take the House for a Building, or take it for a family, and it may seem strange, and full of Admiration, that Israel, which should prevail with God, should embrace Death; That the House of Israel compact in itself, should ruin itself: In Edom 'tis no strange sight to see men run on in their evil ways; In Mesheck, or the Tents of Kedar, there might be at least some colour for a Reply; but to Israel, it is Gravis expostulatio, a heavy, and full Expostulation. Let the Amorites and Hittites; let the Edomites, let God's enemies perish; but let not Israel the People of God Dye. Why should they die? The Devil may be an Edomite; but God forbidden he should be an Israelite.  
The Quarè moriemini? why will ye Die? we see, is levelled to the mark, is here in its right and proper place, and being directed to Israel, is a sharp and vehement exprobration. Oh Israel, why will ye die? I would not have you die: I have made you gentem selectam, a chosen people, that you may not Die: I have set before you Life and Death; Life, that you may choose it, and Death, that you may run from it; and why will you die? My sword is drawn to affright, and not to kill you; and I hold it up, That I may not strike: I have placed death in the way, that you may stop and retreat, and not go on: I have set my Angel, my Prophet, with a sword drawn in his Hand, That at least you may be as wise, as the Beast was under Baalam, and sink, and fall down under your Burden. I have imprinted the very Image of Death in every sin; will ye yet go on? will ye love sin, that hath such a foul face, such a terrible countenance, that is thus clothed, and apparelled with Death? Quis furor oh Cives? what a madness is this, oh ye Israelites? As Herod once upbraiding Cassius for his seditious behaviour in the East, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉; wrote no more but this, Herod to Cassius. Thou art mad; 
Philostrat. in vit. Herodis.  so God may seem to send to his People. God, by his Prophet, to the Israelites, you are mad. Therefore do my people run on in their evil ways, 
Isa. 5.13.  because they have no understanding. For now look upon Death; and that affrights us: Look upon God, and he exhorts us: Reflect upon ourselves, and we are an Israel, a Church of God. There is no cause of dying, but not Turning: no cause of destruction, but Impenitency: If we will not die; we shall not die; and if we will Turn, we cannot die at all; for that if we die, God passeth sentence upon us, and condemns us, but kills us not; but perditio tua ex te Israel, our destruction comes from ourselves: It is not God, it is not death itself, that kills us, but we die, because we will.  
Now by this Touch, and short descant on the words so much Truth is conveyed unto us, as may acquit and discharge God as no way accessary to our death: and to make our Passage clear and plain, we will proceed by these steps or degrees; draw out these three Conclusions. 1. That God is not willing we should die. 2. That he is so far from willing our death, that he hath plenteously afforded sufficient means of life and salvation, which will bring in the Third and last; That if we die, our death is voluntary; That no other reason can be given of our death, but our own will. And the due consideration of these three, may serve to awake our shame, 
Naz. Or. 20.  as death did our fear, which is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 (as Nazianzen speaks) another Help and furtherance to work out our Salvation.  
Why will ye die, oh House of Israel?  
And first, That God is not willing we should die, is plain enough; First, from the Obtestation, or Expostulation itself: Secondly, from the Nature of God, who thus expostulates. For 1. why will ye die? is the voice of a friend, not of an enemy; He that asks me, why I will die? by his very Question assures me, he intends not to destroy me: God is not as man, that he should lie; what he works, he works in the clear and open day: His fire is kindled to inflame us; his water flows to purge and cleanse us; his oil is poured forth to supple us; his commands are not snares, nor his Precepts Accusations: He stamps not the devil's face upon his Coin; He willeth not, what he made not, and he made not Death, saith the Wiseman. He wisheth, he desireth we should live; he is angry, 
Wisd. 1.12.  and sorry if we die. He looks down upon us, calls after us; he exhorts, and rebukes, and even weeps over us, as our Saviour did over Jerusalem, and if we die, we cannot think that he that is life itself, should kill us. If we must die, why doth he yet complain? why doth he expostulate? for if the Decree be come forth, if we be lost already, why doth he yet call after us? how can a desire, or command breath in those coasts, which the power of an absolute will hath laid waste already? if he hath decreed we should die, he cannot desire we should live, but rather the Contrary, that his Decree be not void, and of no effect; otherwise to pass sentence, an irrevocable sentence of Death; and then bid us live, is to look for liberty and freedom, in Necessity, for a sufficient effect, from an unsufficient cause; to command, and desire that, which himself had made impossible; to ask a Dead man, why he doth not live, and to speak to a carcase, and bid it walk. Indeed by some this, why will you die? is made but sancta simulatio, but a kind of holy dissimulation, so that God with them, sets up man as a mark, and then sticks his deadly arrows in his sides, and after asks him, why he will die? And why may he not, saith one, with the same liberty Damn a soul, as a Hunter kills a Dear? (a bloody instance) as if an immortal soul, which Christ set at a greater rate, than the World itself, nay, than his own most precious Blood, were in his sight of no more value, than a Beast, and God were a mighty Nimrod, and did destroy men's souls for delight and pleasure. Thus though they dare not call God the Author of sin (for who is so sinful, that could hear and not Anathematise it?) yet others, and those no children in understanding, think it a Conclusion, that will naturally, and necessarily follow upon such bloody premises; and they are more encouraged by those illboding words, which have dropped from their quills; For say some; vocat, ut induret; He calls them to no other end, but that he may harden them; he hardens them, that he may destroy them; He exhorts them to turn, that they may not Turn●; He asks them, why they will die; that they may run on in their evil ways, even upon Death itself: when they break his command, they fulfil his will; and 'tis his pleasure they should sinne; 'tis his pleasure, they should die; and when he calls upon them not to sin, when he asks them, why they will die, he doth but Dissemble, for they are dead already; Horribili decreto, by that horrible, antecedaneous Decree of Reprobation.  
And now tell me; If we admit of this, What's become of the expostulation? what use is there of the obtestation? why doth he yet ask, why will ye Die? I called it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a reason unanswerable; but if this Fancy, this Interpretation take place, it is no reason at all, why will ye die? the Answer is ready (and what other answer can a poor praecondemned soul make?) Domine Deus tu nosti, Lord God thou knowest: Thou condemnest us before thou mad'st us; Thou didst Destroy us, before we were; and if we die, Even so, Good Lord, For it is thy good pleasure; Fato volvimur, it is our Destiny; or rather, Est deus in nobis, not a stoical fate, but thy right hand, and thy strong irresistible Arm hath destroyed us, and so the expostulation is answered, and the Quare mortemini is nothing else, but mortui estis, why will ye die? that's the Text; the Gloss is, you are dead already.  
But in the Second place, That this expostulation is true and Hearty, may be seen in the very Nature of God, who is Truth itself; who hath but one property, and Quality, saith Trismegistus, and that is Goodness; and therefore cannot bid us live, when he intends to kill us: For consider God before man had fallen from him by sin and disobedience, and we shall see nothing but the works of his Goodness, and Love. The heavens were the works of his Fingers; 
Basil. Hem. in Famem & sicci●.  he created Angels, and men, he spoke the word, and all was done, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉? saith Basil: what necessity was there, that he should thus break forth into Action? who compelled him? who persuaded him? who was his Counsellor? He was All-sufficient, and stood in need of nothing, 
l. 4. c. 28.  non quasi Indigens plasmavit Adam, saith Irenaeus, it was not out of any indigency, or Defect in himself, that he made Adam after his Image. He was all to himself before he made any thing, nor could millions of Worlds have added to him. What was it to him, that there were Angels made, or Seraphin, or Cherubin? he gained not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, 
Athena. Legatio pro Christianis.  said Aristotle, for there could be no Accession, nothing to heighten his perfection. Did he make the world 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, as Athenagor as calls it, as an Instrument to make him Music? Did he clothe the Lilies, and dress up Nature in various colours to delight himself? or could he not reign without man? saith Mirandula? God hath a most free, and powerful and immutable will, and therefore it was not necessary for him to work, or to begin to work, but when he would; for he might both will, and not will the Creation of all Things, without any change of his will, but it pleased him out of his goodness, thus to break forth into Action: will you know the cause, saith the Sceptic, why he made world? 
Sext. Emperic. adv. Mathemat. pag. 327.  〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉; He was good; Nihil ineptius, saith one, quam cogitare Deum nihil agentem; There is nothing more vain then to conceive that God could be idle, or doing of nothing; and were it not for his Goodness, we could hardly conceive him ad extrà agentem; working any thing out of himself, who was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, All-sufficient, 
1 Tim. 1.11.  and Blessed for evermore, infinitely happy, though he had never created the Heaven, and the Earth, though there had neither been Angel or man to worship him; but he did all these things because he was good. Bonitas saith Tertul. otium sui non patitur, hinc censetur, 
Tert. adv. Martion. l. 2.  si agatur, Goodness is an Active, and restless quality, and it is not, when it is Idle; it cannot contain itself in itself, and by his Goodness he made man, made him for his Glory, and so to be partaker of his happiness; placed him here on earth, to raise him up to Heaven, made him a living soul, ut in vitâ hac compararet vitam, that in this short and Transitory life, he might fit himself for an Abiding City, and in this moment work out Eternity. Thus of Himself, God is good, nor can any evil proceed from him; if he frown, we first move him: if he be angry, we have provoked him; if he come in a Tempest, we have raised it; if he be a consuming fire, we have kindled it; we force him to be, what he would not be; we make him Thunder, who is all Light. 
Tert. advers. Marc. l. 2. c. 11.  Bonitas ingenita, severitas Accidens; Alteram sibi, alteram rei Deus praestitit, saith the Father, his goodness is Natural, his severity (in respect of its Act) Accidental; for God may be severe, and yet not punish; for he strikes not till we provoke him; his Justice, and severity are the same, as everlasting as himself, though he never speak in his wrath, nor draw his sword; If there were no Hell, yet were he just, and if there were no Abraham's Bosom, yet were he Good; if there were neither Angel nor men, he were still the Lord, blessed for evermore; in a word, he had been just though he had never been Angry; he had been merciful, though man had not been miscrable, he had been the same God, just, and good, and merciful, though sin had not entered in by Adam, nor Death by sin. God is active in Good, and not in Evil, he cannot do what he doth detest and hate, he cannot Decree, Ordain, or further that, which is most contrary to him; he doth not kill me before all time, and then in time, ask me why I will die? He doth not Condemn me first, and then make a Law, that I may break it. He doth not blow out my Candle, and then punish me for being in the dark. That the conviction of a sinner should be the only end of his Exhortations, and Expostulations cannot consist with that Goodness, which God is, who when he comes to punish, 
Isai. 28.21.  sacit opus non suum, saith the Prophet, doth not his own work, doth a strange work, a strange Act, an Act that is forced from him, a work which he would not do.  
And as he doth not will our Death, so doth he not desire to manifest his Glory in it; which (as our Death) proceeds from his secondary, and occasioned will; For God, saith Aquinas, seeks not the manifestation of his Glory, 
Aquin. 2.2 q. 132. art. 1.  for his own, but for our sakes; His glory as his Wisdom, and Justice, and Power, is with him always, as eternal as himself; no Choir of Angels can improve, no raging Devil can diminish his Glory, which in the midst of all the Hallelujahs of Seraphin, and Cherubin, in the midst of all the Blasphemies of men and Devils, is still the same; and his first will is to see it in his Image, in the conformity of our wills to his, where it strives in the perfection of Beauty, rather than when it is decayed and defaced, rather than in a Damned Spirit; rather in that Saint he would have made, then in that Reprobate, and cursed soul, which he was forced to throw into the lowest pit, and so to receive his Glory, is, that which he would not have, which he was willing to begin on Earth, and then have made it perfect and complete in the highest Heavens. 
Tert. ibid.  Exinde admortem sed ante ad vitam; The sentence of Death was pronounced against man, almost as soon as he was man; but he was first created to life; we are punished for being evil, but we were first commanded to be good; his first will is, That we glorify him in our Bodies, and in our souls; but if we frustrate his loving expectation here, than he rouseth himself up as a mighty man, and will be avenged of us, and work his Glory, out of that which dishonoured him, and write it with our blood. In the multitude of the People, 
Prov. 14.28.  is the Glory of a King, saith the wisest of Kings, and more Glory, if they be obedient to his laws, then if they rebel, and rise up against him; That Commonwealth is more glorious, where every man fills his place, then where the Prisons are filled with Thiefs, and Traitors, and men of Belial; and though the Justice, and wisdom of the King may be seen in these, yet 'tis more resplendent in those, on whom the Law hath more Power, than the sword. In Heaven is the glory of God best seen, and his delight is in it; to see it in the Church of the Firstborn, and in the souls of just men made perfect, it is now indeed his will, which primarily was not his will, to see it in the Devil and his Angels. For God is best pleased to see his Creature man, to answer to that patte●e, which he hath set up, to be what he should be, and what he intended: And, as every Artificer glories in his work, when he sees it finished according to the rule, and that Idea, which he had drawn in his mind; and as we use to look upon the work of our hands, or wits, with that favour and complacency we do upon our Children, when they are like us; so doth God upon man, when he appears in that shape and form of Obedience, which he prescribed; for then the Glory of God is carried along in the continued stream, and course of all our Actions, breaks forth, and is seen in every work of our Hands, is the Echo of every word we speak, the result of every Thought, that begat that word; and it is Music in his ears, which he had rather hear, than the weeping and howling of the Damned, which he will now hear, though the time was, when he used all fitting means to prevent it, even the same means, by which he raised those, who now glorify him in the Highest Heaven.  
God then, is no way willing we should die; not by his Natural will which is his prime, and antecedent will; for Death cannot issue from the Fountain of Life, and by this will was the Creature made in the beginning, and by this preserved ever since; by this are administered all the means to bring it to that perfection and happiness for which it was first made; for the goodness of God it was, which first gave a being to man, and then adopted him in spe●… reg●…i, designed him for immortality, and gave him a Law, by the fulfilling of which, he might have a Taste of that Joy and Happiness, which he from all Eternity possessed. And therefore secondly, not voluntate praecepti, not by his will expressed in his command, in his precepts, and Laws; For under Christ, this will of his is the only destroyer of Death, and being kept and observed, swallows it up in victory; for how can Death touch him, who is made like unto the living Lord? or how should Hell receive him, whose conversation is in heaven? 
Ezek. 16. ●1. 13.21.  If we do them, we shall even live in them, saith the Prophet, and he repeats it often, as if Life were as inseparable from them, as it is from the living God himself, by which, as he is life in himself, so to man, whom he had made, he brought life and immortality to light. And these his Precepts are defluxions from him, the proper issue of his natural and primitive desire, of that general Love of goodwill which he did bear to his Creature, and the only way to draw on that love of Friendship, that nearer Relation by which we are one with him, and he with us, by which he calls us his Children, and we cry Abba, Father; his first will ordained us for good, his second will was published, and set up as a light, to bring us to that good, for which we were made and created.  
But we are told, there is in God, voluntas permissionis, a permissive will, or a will of permission; and indeed some have made great use of this wo●d permission; and have made it of the same necessitating power and efficacy, with that, by which God made the Heavens and the Earth, for we find it in Terminis, in their writings, positâ peccati permissione, necesse est ut peccatum eveniat, that upon the permission of sin, it must necessarily follow, that sin must be committed; They call it permission, but before they wind up their Discourses, the word, I know not by what Logic, or Grammar hath more significations put upon it, than God or nature ever gave it. 
Tert. in vit. Agr.  Romani ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant, say the Ancient Britons in Tacitus, The Romans, where by Fire and Sword they lay the Land waste, and Turn all to a Wilderness, call it Peace, so here the word is permission, but currente rotâ, whilst they are hot, and busy in their work, at last it is, Excitation, stirring up, Inclining, hardening, permittere is no less than Impellere, permission is Compulsion, & by their Chemistry, they are able to extract all this out of this one word and more, as, That God will have that done, which he forbids us to do; God doth not will, what he tells us, he doth will; That some are cast asleep from all eternity, that they may be Hardened, and all this with them is but permission. And to make this Good, we are told That God hath on purpose created some men with an intent to permit them to fall into sin? and this at first sight is a fair Proposition, that carries Truth written in the very forehead, but indeed it is deceitful upon the weights, one thing is said, and another meant. God hath created some, and why some, and not all? for no doubt the condition of Creation is the same in all. And why with a purpose to permit them to fall into sin? did he not also create them with a purpose, that they should walk in his Commandments? Certainly both, and rather the last than the former; for God indeed permits sin, but withal forbids it; but he permits, nay he commands us to do his will. Permission looks upon both, both upon sin, and upon Obedience; on the one side it meets with a check, on the other with a Command, That we may not do what is but permitted, and Forbidden, and that we may yield ready Obedience to that which is not permitted only, but commanded. It was a Custom amongst the Ancients 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, to number and cast up their Accounts with their fingers, 
Naz. Or. 3.  as we do by Figures and Counters, whence Orontes the Persian was wont to say, Eundem digitum nunc Decem millia, nunc unum ostendere, that the same finger with some alteration and change, did now signify Ten thousand, and in another posture and motion but one; The same use some men have made of this word permission, which they did of their fingers. In its true sense, and natural place, it can signify no more than this, A purpose of God, not to Intercede by his Omnipotency, and hinder the committing of those sins, which if he permitted not, could not once have a being: but men have learned so to place it, that it shall stand for Ten Thousand; for Inclination, and excitation, and induration, and all these Fearful expressions, which leave men chained and Fettered with an Inevitable necessity of sinning, and so make that, which in God is but merely permission, infallibly effective, and so damn men with gentler Language, and in a soster phrase; he permits them; That he doth, that he must do; but their meaning is, His absolute will is, that they should die; and let them shift as they please, and wind and Turn themselves to slip out of reach; after all Defalcations and subtractions they can make, it will arise near to this Sum, which I am almost afraid to give you, That God is willing we should die. For to this purpose, they bring in also God's Providence; To this purpose? I should have said, To none at all; For though God rule the world, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, by this Law of Providence, as Nazianz. calls it, though he disposeth and ordereth all things, and all actions of men, yet he lays not any Law of Necessity upon all things. 
Aquin. pri●…. part. q. 22.  Some effects he hath fitted with necessary causes, that they may infallibly fall out, saith Aquinas, and to other effects, which in their own nature are contingent, he hath applied Contingent Causes, so that, that shall fall out Necessarily, which his Providence hath so disposed of, and that Contingently, which he hath left in a Contingency; and both these in the nature of things necessary and Contingent are within the verge and rule of his Providence, and he altars them not, but extrà ordinem, when he would do some extraordinary work, when he would work a Miracle. The Sun knoweth his seasons, and the Moon its going down, and this in a constant and unchangeable course, but yet he commanded the Sun to stand still in Gibeon, 
Josh. 10.12.  and the Moon in the valley of Ajalon. But then, I think, all Events are not as necessary, as the change of the Moon, or the setting of the Sun, for all have not so necessary causes: unless you will say, to walk or stand, to be rich or poor, to fall in battle, or to conquer, are as necessary effects as Darkness, when the Sun sets, or Light, when it riseth in our Horizon: And this indeed may bring in a new kind of Predestination, to walk or stand, to Riches, and Poverty, to Victory and Captivity, as well as to Everlasting life, and everlasting perdition.  
But, posito, sed non concesso, Let us suppose it, though we grant it not, That the Providence of God hath laid a Necessity upon such Events as these, yet it doth not certainly upon those Actions which concern our everlasting welfare, which either raise us up to heaven, or cast us down to destruction. It were not much material (at least a good Christian might think so) whether we sit or walk, whether he predetermine that we be rich or poor, that we Conquer or be overcome: what is it to me, though the Sun stand still, if my feet be at Liberty, to run the ways of God's Commandments? what is it to me, if the Moon should start out of his Sphere, if I lose not the sight of that brightness, which should direct me in my way to bliss? what were it to me, if I were necessitated to Beggary, so I be not a predestinate Bankrupt in the City of the Lord? Let him do what he will in Heaven and in earth; Let the Sun go back; let the Stars lose their light, let the Wheel of Nature move in a contrary way, Let the pillars of the world be shaken; Let him do what he will; It concerns us not further then that we say, Amen, so be it; for we must give him leave, who made the world, to govern it: If all other Events and Actions were necessary, we might well sit down, and lay our hands upon our mouth; But here 'tis est de totâ possessione, we speak not of Riches and Poverty, or fair weather and tempests, but of Everlasting life, and everlasting Damnation; and to entitle God either directly or indirectly, to the sins and death of wicked men, so to lay the Scene, that it shall appear, though masked and veiled with limitations and distinctions, and though they be not positive, yet leave such Premises, out of which this conclusion may easily be drawn, is a high reproach to God's Infinite Goodness, a Blasphemy, however men wipe their mouths after it, of the greatest magnitude (not to speak the worst) it is to stand up, and contradict him to his face, and when he swears, he would not have us die, to proclaim it to all the world, that there be Thousands whom he hath killed already, and destroyed before they were, and so Decreed to do that from all Eternity, which in Time, he swore he would not do.  
I speak not this to rake the Ashes of any of those who are dead, who either maintained or favoured this Opinion, nor to stir the Choler of any man living, who may love this Child for the Father's sake; but for the honour of God, and his everlasting goodness, which I conceive to be strangely violated by this Doctrine of Efficacious permission, or by that shift and evasion of a positive efficiency joined (as it is said) inseparably with this permission of sin, which is so fare from colouring it over, or giving any loveliness to it, that it renders it more horrid and deformed, and is the louder blasphemy of the two, which clothes, as it were, a Devil, with Light, which yet breaks through it, and rages as much, as if he had been in his own shape. Permission is a fair word, and bodes no harm, but yet it breathes forth that poisonous exhalation, which kills us; for but to be permitted to sin, is to be a child appointed to death; The Ancients, especially the Athenians, did account some words ominous, and therefore they never used to speak them; 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, they called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉; The Prison they called the House, The Hangman, 
Helladius apud Photium.  the Common Officer, and the like, and the Romans would not once mention Death, or say, their friend was dead, but Humanitùs illi Accidit, we may render it in the Scripture Phrase; He is gone the way of all flesh; what their fancy lead them to; Religion should persuade us, to think, that some words there be, which we should be afraid to mention, when we speak of God: Excitation to sin, Inclination, Induration, Reprobation, as they are used, are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, ill-boding words, but yet we must not, with the Heathen only change the language, and mean the same thing, and call it Permission, when our whole Discourse drives this way, to bring it forward, and set it up for a flat and Absolute Compulsion: for this is but to plough the wind, to make a way, which ●…oses of itself, as soon as it is made; this is not to Teach men, but to amaze them. Sermo per deflexus, & anfractus veritarem po●rus qu●…il, quam ostendit, saith Hilary; when men broach these contradictions to known and common Principles, when they make these Meanders, these wind and turn, in their Discourses, they make it also apparent, that they are still in their search, and have not yet found out the Truth. Let us therefore, Fontem à Capite f●dere, as near as we can, lay open the ground of this mistake and Error, and we shall find it to be an error, as great as this, and hath the same taste and relish with the fountain from whence it flowed.  
For they who make Gods will, which is but permissive, Effective, at the very mention of God's will, Think of that absolute will of his, which cannot be resisted, by which he made the Heavens, and the earth, and so acknowledge no will of God but that which is absolute and effective, as if that will of his, by which he would have us do something, were the same with that, by which he will do something himself, and so in effect, make not only the Conversion, but the Induration of a sinner the work of his Omnipotency. But were not men blind to all objects, but those they delight to look on, they might easily discern a great difference; and that Gods will is broken every Day. His Natural Desire, which is his will to save mankind, is that fulfilled? if it were, there could be no Hell at all. His command, that is, his will, what moment is there, wherein that is not resisted? we are those Devils which kindle that fire, which he made not for us; we are those sons of Anak, those Giantlike fighters against Heaven, which break his Commands with as great ease, as Samson dip his Threads of Tow. We are like those Leviathans, which break the bounds which he hath set us, that esteem Iron as straw, with whom his Threaten, which he darts at us, are accounted as stubble, and can we, who so often break his will, say, That his will is always fulfilled?  
For again, we must not imagine, That all things that are done in the world, are the work of his hand, or the effect of that Power by which he brings mighty things to pass, nor can we so much forget God and his Goodness, as to imagine, that upon every Action of man, he hath set a Dixit, & factum est, he spoke the word, and it was done, he commanded, and it became Necessary; for some Actions there be, which God doth neither absolutely will, nor powerfully resist, but in his Wisdom permitteth to be done, which otherwise could not be done, but by his permission; nor doth this will of permission fall cross with any other will of his; not with his absolute will, for he absolutely permitteth them; not with his primary and Natural will; for though by his Natural will, he would bring men to happiness, though he forbidden sin, though he detest it, as that which is most contrary to his very nature, and which makes men Devils and Enemies to him; yet he may Justly permit it; and the reason is plain. For man is not as God, qui sibi sufficit ad beatitudinem, who is all-sufficient and Happiness itself, and therefore was placed in an Estate, where he might work out his own Happiness, but still with a Possibility of being miserable. And herein was the Goodness and Wisdom of God made visible; and as from his goodness it is, that he loved his Creature, so in his goodness and Wisdom he placed before him Good and evil, that he might lay hold on Happiness, and be good willingly, and not of Necessity. For it is Impossible for any Finite Creature who hath not his completenes, his perfection in himself, to purchase heaven, but upon such terms, as that he might have lost it, nor to lose it, but upon such Terms, as that he might have took it by violence. For every Law, as it supposeth a possibility of being kept, so doth it also a possibility of being broken, which cannot be without permission of sin, Lex justo non est posita, if Goodness had been as Essential to man, as his Nature and soul by which he is; if God had interceded by his Omnipotency, and by an irresistible force, kept sin from entering into the world; The Jews had not heard the noise of the Trumpet under the Law, nor the Disciples the Sermon on the Mount under the Gospel; there had been no use of the Comfortable breath of his Promises, nor the Terror of his Threaten; for who would make a Law against that, which he knows will never come to pass? a Law against sin, supposeth a permission to sin, and a possibility of sinning. Lastly, it stands in no show of opposition to his occasioned and consequent will; for we must suppose sin, before we can take up the least conceit of of any will in God to punish. Omnis poena, si justa est, peccati poena est, saith Austin, in his Retractations; all punishment that is just, is the punishment of sin, and therefore God, who of his Natural Goodness would not have man commit sin, out of his Justice wills man's Destruction, and will not repent: Sic totus Deus bonus est, dum pro bono omnia est, 
Tert. l. 2. adv. Martion.  saith Tertullian, Thus God is entirely good, whilst all he is, whether Merciful, or severe, is for Good: minus est tantummodò prodesse, quia non aliud quid possit, quam prodesse, his reward might seem too lose, and not carry with it that Intinite value and weight, if he could not reach out his hand to punish, as well as to reward, and some distrust it might work in the creature, That he could not do the one, if he could not do both: So ●…en, sin is permitted, though God hate sin; that which brings us to the gates of Death, is permitted, though God hath tendered ●…s will with an Oath, That he will not have us die; Though he forbids sin, though he punish it, yet he permitts it, I have said too little; Nay, he could nor forbid, and punish it, if he did not permit it. Yet permission is permission, and no more, nor is it such a Trojan Horse, nor can it swell to that bulk and Greatness, as to hid and contain within it those Monsters of Fate and Necessity; of Excaecation, and excitation, of inclination, and induration, which devour a soul, and cannot be resisted; which bind us over unto Death, when the noise is loud about us, why will ye die? For this permissive Will of God, or his will of permission is not operative, nor efficacious; neither is it a remitting, or slackening of the will of God, upon which sin, as some pretend, must necessarily follow; nor is it Terminated in the thing permitted, but in the permission itself alone; for to permit sin is one Thing, and to be willing that sin should be committed is another; for it is written in the leaves of Eternity, That God will not have sin committed, as being most abhorrent, and Contrary to his Nature, and will, and yet this permission of sin is a positive Act of his will; for he will permit sin, though he hath clothed it with Death, to make us afraid of it, and upon pain of Eternal Damnation, forbids us to sin, though it were his will to permit it. These two; To be willing to permit sin, and to be willing that sin should be committed, are as different in sense, as in sound, unless we will say, That he who permits me to be wounded, when I would not look to myself, and hold up my buckler, ●id cast that Dart at me, which sticks in my sides: we have been told indeed, Qui volens permittit peccata, certè vult voluntate permissiuâ ab alijs fieri, That he that is willing to permit sin, by that permissive will, is willing also to have that sin committed; but it is so unsavoury, so thin and empty a Speech, that the least cast of the Eye pierceth through it, a rotten stick whittled by unskilful hands, to make a Pillar to uphold that Fabric of the Fancy, The absolute Decree of Reprobation. Take away this supporter, That God will have that to be done, which he permits, that is, That he will have that to be done, which he forbids, and down falls this Babel of Confusion to the ground.  
And now what is God's will? Haec est voluntus Dei, sanctificatio vestra; This is his will, even your sanctification; Saint Luke calls it, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the Counsel of God, and so doth Saint Matthew, 
1 Thess 4.3. Luk. 7.30.  his counsel his wish, his desire, his will, his natural, sincere, and constant will, and it savours of much vanity and weakness, to talk and dispute of his Decree, which in respect of particulars, must needs be to us most uncertain, when we certainly know his will, when he cries to day if you will hear his voice; when his Precepts, his Laws are promulged, hodie, To Day, to inquire what he did before all Eternity; we may rest on the Goodness of God, who would not have created us, 
Isa. 43.7.  if he had not loved us; (I have made thee, I have form thee, I have Created thee, saith God, for my Glory) on the Mercy of God, with which it could not consist, to precondemne so many to Misery before they were; upon the Justice of God, which cannot punish without desert, which could not be in the Creature, before he was; and on the Wisdom of God, which doth nothing, much less doth make man for nought, stamp his Image upon him, to deface it, nor useth to make and unmake, to build, and pull down, to plant, and to dig up; and to the grace of God, which hath appeared unto all men, that they may know him to be the True God, and him, whom he hath sent Christ Jesus.  
But now we are told, that some places of Scripture there are, which seem to give God a greater hand in sin, than a bare, and feeble, and uneffective permission; for in the 6. of Esay. 9, 10. verse. God bids the Prophet, Go, tell the People, Crassum reddito cor populi hujus, Make the heart of this people fat, and their ears Heavy, lest they see with their Eyes, and hear with their Ears, and be converted. Now to make their heart fat, and their ears heavy, and to shut up their eyes, is more than a bare permission, is in a manner to destiny, and appoint them to Death; most true; if it can be proved out of this place, that God did either. But it is one thing to Prophecy a Thing shall be done, and another to do it; Hector in Homer foretells Achilles' Death, and Herod the fall of Mezentius in Virgil, and our Saviour the Destruction of Jerusalem; but neither was Hector's Prophecy the cause of Achilles' Death, nor Herod's of Mezentius, nor our Saviour of the Destruction of Jerusalem; vade & dic, Go, and tell them; makes it a plame prediction, what manner of men they would be, to whom Christ was to speak, stubborn and refractory, and such as would harden their faces against the Truth. If you will not take this Interpretation, our! Saviour is an Interpreter one of a Thousand, nay, one for all the world, and tells the multitude, that in them was fulfilled the Prophecy of Esay, which saith, By hearing you shall hear, and not understand, Matth. 13.14. for this People's heart is waxed fat, and their eyes have they closed, that they might not see. And here, if their eyes were shut, it were fit one would Think, they should be opened; True (saith chrysostom) if they had been borne blind, or if this had been the immediate Act of God; but because they wilfully shut their eyes, he doth not say simply, they do not see, but seeing they do not see to show what was the cause of their blindness, even a perverse and froward heart: they saw his Miracles; they said he did them by Beelzebub. He tells them that he is come to show them the will of God; they are peremptory and resolute, that he is not of God, and bring corrupt Judges against their own sight, and understanding, they were justly punished with the loss of both: For it is just, that he should be blind, that puts out his own eyes. Yet was not this incrassation or blinding through any malevolent influence from God, but this action is therefore attributed to God, because whatsoever light he had afforded them, whatsoever means he had offered them, whatsoever he did for them, was through their own fault and stubbornness of no more use to them, than colours to a blind man, or as the Wiseman speaks a mess of Pottage on a Deadman's Grave.  
We might hear Sylvam ingentem commovere, meet with many other places of Scripture like to this, but we will touch but one more, and it is that, which is so common in men's mouths, and at the first hearing conveys to our understanding a show and appearance of some positive act in God, which is more than a bare permission; For God tells Moses in plain terms Indurabo cor Pharaonis, I will harden Pharaohs heart. Exod. 7.3. And here I will not say with Garson, aliud est litera, aliud est literalis sensus, that the letter is one thing, and the literal sense another, 
Hil de Trin. l. 8.  but rather with Hilary, Optimus est lector, qui dictorum in telligentiam ex dictis potius expectet, quam imponat, & retulerit magis quam attulerit, he is the best reader of Scripture, who doth rather wait and expect what sense the words will bear, then on the sudden rashly fasten what sense he please, and carry away the meaning, not bring one; nor cry this must be the sense of the Scripture, which his presumption formerly had set down; Sure I am none of the Fathers, which I have seen, make this induration, and hardening of Pharaohs heart a positive act of God; not Saint Augustine himself, who was more likely to look this way then any of the rest, although he interprets this place of Scripture in divers places; 
Augustin: Feriâ 4 post 3. Dominic: in Quadrages. Pharaoh non potentiae, sed patientiâ Dei indurabatur, id. Ser. 88  I will but mention one, and it is in one of his Lent Sermons Quoties auditur cor Pharaonis Dominum obdurasse etc. As often as it is read in the Church that God did harden Pharaohs heart, some scruple presently ariseth not only in the minds of the ignorant Laity, but of the Learned Clergy, and for these very words the Manichees most Sacrilegiously condemned the old Testament, and Martion rather than he would yield that good and evil proceeded from the same God, did run upon a grosser impiety, and made another, two principles, one of good, and another of evil; But we may lay this, saith he, as a sure ground and an infallible Axiom, Deus non deserit nisi prius deserentem, God never forsakes any man, till he first forsake God. When we continue in sin, when the multitude of our sins beget despair, and despair obduration, when we add sin to sin, and to make up the weight that sinks us; when we are the worse for God's mercy, and the worse for his Judgements, when his mercy hardens us, and his light blinds us, God then may be said to harden our hearts, as a Father by way of upbraiding may tell his prodigal and Thristlesse son, ego talem te feci, 'tis my love and goodness hath occasioned this, I have made thee so by sparing thee, when I might have struck thee Dead; I have nourished this thy pertinacy, although all the Father's love and indulgency was grounded upon a just hope and expectation of some change and alteration in his son. Look upon every circumstance in the story of Pharaoh, and we cannot find one, which was not as a Hammer to malleat and soften his stony heart, nor do we read of any, upon whom God did bestow so much pains: His ten plagues were as ten Commandments to let the people go, and had he relented at the first, saith Chrysostom, he had never felt a second; so that it will plainly appear, that the induration and hardening Pharaohs heart, was not the cause, but the effect of his malice and rebellion, Magnam mansuetudinem contemptae gratiae major sequi solet ira vindictae, for the contempt of God's mercy (and there is mercy even in his Judgements) doth always make way for that induration, which calls down the wrath of God to revenge it. We do not read that God decreed to harden Pharaohs heart, but when Pharaoh was unwilling to bow, when he was deaf to God's Thunder, and despised his Judgements, and scorned his Miracles, God determined to leave him to himself, to set him up as an ensample of his wrath, to work his Glory out of him, to leave him to himself and his own lusts, which he foresaw would lead him to ruin and destruction.  
But if we will tie ourselves to the letter, we may find these several expressions in several Texts, 1. Pharaoh hardened his heart; 2. Pharaohs heart was hardened; 3. God hardened Pharaohs heart; and now let us Judge whether it be safer to interpret God's induration by Pharaohs, or Pharaohs by Gods; for if God did actually and immediately harden Pharaohs heart, than Pharaoh was a mere patient, nor was it in his power to let the people go, and so God sent Moses to bid him do that, which he could not, and which he could not, because God had hardened him; but if Pharaoh did actually harden his own heart (as 'tis plain enough he did) than God's Induration can be no more than a just permission, and suffering him to be hardened, which in his wisdom and the course he ordinarily takes, he would not, and therefore could not hinder; sufficit unus Huic operi, one is enough for this work of induration, and we need not take in God; for to keep to the letter in the former hakes a main principle of truth; that God is in no degree Author of sin; but to keep to the letter in the latter clears all doubts, prevents all objections, and opens a wide and effectual door to let as in to a clear sight of the meaning of the former; For that man doth harden his own heart, is undeniably true; But that God doth harden the heart is denied by most, is spoken darkly and doubtfully by some, nor is it possible that any Christian should speak it plainly or present it in this hideous & monstrous shape, but must be forced to stick and dress it up with some far fetched, and impertinent limitation, or distinction.  
For lastly, I cannot see, how God can positively be said to do that, which is done already to his hand; For induration is the proper, and natural effect of sin; and to bring in God alone is to leave nothing for the devil or man to do, but to make Satan of a Serpent, a very fly indeed, and the soul of man nothing else but a forge and shop to work those sins in, which may burn and consume it everlastingly. God and nature speak the same thing many times, 
Aristot l. 7. Eth. c. 1.  though the phrase be different; that wihch the Philosopher calls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a freity and brutishness of nature, that in Scripture is called hardness of heart; for every man is shaped and form and configured saith Basil to the actions of his life, whither they be good or evil, one sin draws on another, and a second, a third, and at last we are carried 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of our own accord, and as it were by the force of a natural inclination, till we are brought to that extremity of sin, which the Philosopher calls Freity, a shaking of all that is man about us, and the holy Ghost 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a reprobate mind: And such a mind had Pharaoh, 
1 Rom. 2.8.  who was more and more enraged by every sin which he had committed, as the Wolf is most fierce and cruel, when he hath drawn and tasted blood. For it is impossible that any should accustom themselves to sin, and not fall into this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, this hardesse of heart, and indisposition to all goodness; and therefore we cannot conceive that God hath any hand in our death, if we die, and that dereliction, Incrassation, excaecation; hardness of heart are not from God further, then that he hath placed things in that order, that when we accustom ourselves to sin, and contemn his grace, blindness and hardness of heart will necessarily follow, but have no relation to any will of his, but that of permission; and then this expostulation is real and serious, Quare moriemini?  
Why will ye die?—  
And now to conclude, I have not been so particular as the point in Hand may seem to require, nor could I be in this measure of Time, but only in General, stood up in defence of the Goodness and Justice of God; for shall not the Judge of all the Earth do right? shall he necessitate men to be evil, and then bind them by a Law to be good? shall he exhort, beseech them to live, when they are dead already? shall his Absolute Dominion be set up so high, from thence to ruin his Justice? This indeed, some have made their Helena, but 'tis an ugly and ill-favoured one; for this they fight unto Death, even for the Book of life, till they have blotted out their names with the Blood of their Brethren: This is Dressed out unto them as savoury meat set for their palate, who had rather be carried up to heaven in Elias fiery Chariot, then to place it thither with Trouble and pain. That GOD hath absolutely Decreed the salvation of some particular men, and passed sentence of Death upon others, is as Music to some ears, like David's Harp, to refresh them, and drive away the Evil Spirit. Et qui amant, sibi somnia fingunt, mens desires do easily raise a belief, and when they are told of such a Decree, they dream themselves to Heaven; for, if we observe it, they still choose the better part, and place themselves with the sheep at the right Hand, and when the Controverly of the Inheritance of Heaven is on foot, to whom it belongs, they do as the Romans did, who, when two Cities contending about a piece of Ground, made them their Judge to determine whose it was, fairly gave sentence on their own behalf, and took it to themselves: because they read of Election, elect themselves, which is more indeed, than any man can deny, and more I am sure, than themselves can prove; And now, Oh Death, where is thy sting? The sting of Death is sin, but it cannot reach them, and the strength of sin is the Law, but it cannot bind them; for sin itself shall Turn to the good of these Elect and Chosen Vessels; and we have some reason to suspect, that in the strength of this Doctrine, and a groundless conceit that they are these particular men, they walk on all the days of their life in fraud, and malice, in Hypocrisy and disobedience, in all that uncleanness and pollution of sin, which is enough to wipe out any name out of the Book of Life; Hoc saxum defendit Manlius, 
Sen. Controu.  hic excidit; For this they rouse up all their Forces, this is their rock, their fundamental Doctrine, their very Capitol, and from this we may fear many thousands of souls have been Tumbled down into the pit of Destruction: at this rock many such Elect Vessels have been cast away.  
Again, others miscarry as fatally on the other hand; for when we speak of an absolute Decree upon particulars, unto the vulgar sort, who have not Cor in Cord, as Austin speaks, who have their Judgement not in their Heart, but in their sense, they soon conceive a fatal necessity (and one there is, that called it so, Fatum Christianum, the Christian man's Destiny) they think themselves in chains and shackles, that they cannot Turn, when they cannot be predestinate not to Turn, but to die, because they will not Turn. I will give you a remarkable instance, and out of Mr. Calvin; Quintinus, 
Cont. Libertin: And yet his own followers use the ●am words, bring the same Lexis, and Apply them as the Libertines did. vide Piscat. Aphorismos.  the Father of the Libertines (as Calvin himself calls him) as he rides in company, by the way lights upon a man slain, and lying in his gore, and one ask who did this bloody deed? he readily replies, I am he that did it, if thou desire to know it; and art thou such a Villain, saith the party again, to do such an Act? I did it not myself, saith he, but it was God that did it. And being asked again, whether we may impute to God those heinous sins which in Justice he will and doth so severely punish? So it is said he, Thou didst it, and I did it, and God did it; for what thou or I do, God doth; and what God doth, that thou and I do; for we are in him, and he in us, he worketh in us, he worketh all in all. Quintanus is long since dead, but his error died not with him, 
Fataliter consti●utam est quando, & quant●perè unusquisque nostrum pietatem colere, vel non colere 〈◊〉. Piscator. ad ●uplicat. Vorstij. p. 2●8.  for it is the policy of our common Enemy, to remove our Eye as fare as he can from the Command, and he cannot set it at a greater distance, then by fixing it on Eternity, that so whilst we think upon the Decree, we may quite forget the Command, and never fly from Death, because for aught we know, we are killed already, never do our Duty, because God doth whatsoever he will in Heaven and in Earth; never strive to be better than we are, because God is all in All.  
Let us then walk on in a middle way, and neither flatter, nor afflict ourselves with the thought of what God may do, or what he hath done from all Eternity; let us not busy ourselves in the fruitless study of the Book of Life, which no man in Heaven or in Earth is able to open and look into, but only the Lion of the Tribe of Judah, Revel. 5.3,5. in that Book, saith Saint Basil, 
Comment. in 10. c. Isai.  no names are written, but of them that Repent: Let us not seek what God Decrees, which we cannot find out; but harken to what he Commands, which is nigh us, even in our mouths. The Book of Life is shut and sealed up: but he hath opened many other Books to us, and bids us sit down and read them: The Book of his Works, of which the Creatures are the leaves, and the Characters the Goodness and Power, and Glory of God: and the Book of his Words, the Book of the Generation of JESUS CHRIST, to be known and read of all men; and if these Words be written in thy Heart, thy name is also written in the Book of Life; And the Book of thy Conscience, for the information of which, all the Books in the world were made, and if thou read, and study this with care and diligence, and an impartial eye, and then find there no Bill, or Indictment against thee, than thou mayst have confidence towards God, that he never passed any Decree or Sentence of Death against thee, and that thou art ordained to Life. This is the true method of a Christian man's studies, not to look too steadfastly backward upon Eternity; but to look down upon ourselves, and ponder and direct our paths, and then look forward to eternity of Bliss.  
For Conclusion; we read of the Philosopher Thales, that lifting up his eyes to observe the Course of the Stars, he fell into the water, which gave the occasion to a Damsel called Thressa, of an ingenious and bitter scoff: That he who was so busy to see what was done in Heaven, could not observe what was even before his feet; and it is as true of them, who are so bold and forward in the Contemplation of God's Eternal Decree, many times they fall dangerously into those Errors which swallow them up; they are too bold with God, and so negligent of themselves, Talk more what he does, or hath done, or may do, then do what they should; are so much in Heaven, and to so little purpose, that they lose it; But the Apostles method is sure, to use diligence to make our Election sure, and so read the Decree in our Obedience, and sincere conversation, and if we can persuade ourselves, that our Names are written in the Book of Life, yet so to behave ourselves, so to work on with Fear and Trembling, as if it were yet to be done; as it was told the Philosopher, that he might have seen the figure of the Stars in the water, but could not see the water in the stars. All the knowledge we can gain of the Decree, is from ourselves; it is written in heaven, and the Characters we read it by on Earth: are Faith and Repentance: if we believe, and repent, than God speaks to us from heaven, and tells us, we shall not die; If we be dead to sin, and alive to Righteousness, we are enroled, and our names are written in the book of Life; here, here alone is the Decree legible, and if our eye fail not in the one, it cannot be deceived in the other; If we love Christ, and keep his Commandments, we are in the number of Elect, and were chosen from all Eternity.  
Be not then cast down, and dejected in thyself with what God hath done, or may do by his absolute Power, for thou mayst build upon it; He never saved an Impenitent, nor will ever cast away a Repentant sinner. Behold, he calls to thee now by his Prophet; Quare morieris? Why wilt thou die? didst thou ever hear from him, or from any Prophet, a morieris, that thou shalt die, or a Mortuus es, that thou art dead already? Thou hast his Prayers, his entreaties, and besseeching, Expandit manus, he spreads forth his hands all the day long; Thou hast his wishes; Oh that thou wert wise, so wise as to look upon the moriemini, to consider thy last end: Thou hast his Covenant, 
Deut. 23.29.  which he swore to our forefather's Abraham, and his seed for ever: His Comminations, his obtesTations, his expostulations thou mayest read, but didst thou ever read the book of life? Look on the moriemini, look on the death's head in the Text, look not into the book of life; thou hast other care that lies upon thee, thou hast other business to do; thou hast an understanding to adorn, a will to watch over, affections to bridle, the flesh to crucify, temptations to struggle with, the devil to encounter: Think then of thy duty, not of the decree, and the sincere performance of the duty will seal the decree, and seal thee up to the day of redemption. It is a good rule, which Martin Luther gives us, Dimitte Scripturam ubi obscura est, tene ubi certa, where the text is dark and obscure, suspend thy judgement, and where it is plain and easy, express and manifest it in thy conversation, which is the best descant on a plain song. Thou readest, there are vessels made to dishonour; whether God made them so, as some will have it, or they made themselves so, as Basil and chrysostom interpret it, it concerns not thee; That which concerns thee is plain, thou mayest run and readit, that thou must possess thy vessel in honour, and build up thyself in this holy faith: the Quare moriemini? is plain, it is plain that God is not willing thou shouldest die, but hath showed thee a plain passage unto life; hath not indeed supplied thee with means to interpret riddles, and untie knots, and explain and resolve hard texts of Scripture; but he hath supplied thee with means of life, brought thee to the gates of paradise, to the ways of life, and the wells of salvation. The lines are fallen to thee in a fair place. Behold, he hath placed thee in Domo Israelis, in the house of Israel, in domo salutis in the house of salvation.  
Which is next to be considered.    

THE ELEVENTH SERMON.  

PART VII.  EZEKIEL 33.11. 
For why will you die, Oh House of Israel?  
GOD is not willing we should die; for he is goodness itself, and no evil can proceed from him, 
Or. quod Deus nonsit Autor mali.  no not the evil of punishment; for it is his strange work, and rather ours, than his (saith Basil) for if our sins did not call and cry out for it he would not do it, as delighting rather to see his glory in that Image which is like him, then in that which is defaced, and toru and mangled, and now burning in hell; Ipse te subdidisti poenae, that's the stile of the imperial Law; his wrath could not kindle, nor Hell burn, till we did blow the coals, we bring ourselves under punishment, and then he strikes, and we die, and are lost for ever. It was his goodness that made us, and it was his goodness which made a Law, and made it possible to be kept, and in the same stream of goodness were conveyed unto us sufficient and abundant means, by the right use of which we might be carried on in an even and constant course of obedience to that Law, and so have a clearer knowledge of him, a nearer union with him, a taste of the powers of the world to come, a share and part in that fullness of joy, which is at his right hand for evermore. And why then will you die Oh House of Israel?  
And indeed, why should Israel? why should any of the House of Israel die? For take it in the letter for the Jews; Take it in the application, for us Christians; take it for the Synagogue, which is the Type, 
Rom. 9.6  or take it for the Church, which is Israel indeed, as the Apostle calls it, and a strange thing it is, and as full of shame as wonder that any one should die in domo Israelis in the house of Israle, or perish in the Church; Si honoratior est persona major est peccantis invidia, 
Salvian. l. 1. de Gub. M.  the malice of sin is proportioned to the person that commits it; not so strange a thing to die in the streets of Askelon, as in the house of Israel, nor for a Turk or Infidel to be lost as a Christian. For though the condition of the person cannot change the species of the sin (for sin is the same in whomsoever it is) yet it hath not so foul an aspect in one as in another, cries not so loud in the dark, as in the light, and is most fatal, and destructive where is most means to avoid it; is most mortal there where there is most light to discover its deformity. A wicked Israelite is worse than an Edomite, and a bad Christian worse than a Turk or a Jew. In domo Israelis, to be in the house, to be a member of the Church is a great privilege, but if we honour not this privilege so far, as to make our deportment answerable, even our privilege, itself being abused and forfeited, will change its countenance, and accuse, and condemn us. We find it as a positive truth laid down in the Schools, and if it were not in our Books, common reason would have showed it us in a character legible enough; Gravius peccat fidelis, 
Aquin. 2.2. q. 10 art. 3.  quam Infidelis propter Sacramenta fidei quibus Contumeliam facit, of all Idolaters an Israelite is the worst, and no swine to the unclean Christian, no villain to him, if he be one; for here sin makes the deeper tincture, and impression, leaves a stain, not only on his person, but his profession; Flings contumely on the very Sacraments of his faith, and casts a blemish on his house and family; whereas in an Infidel it hath not so deadly an effect, but is vailed and shadowed by ignorance, and borrows some excuse from Infidelity itself.  
For first, to speak a word of the house of Israel in the letter, and so to pass from the Synagogue to the Church. the Jews were Domestica Dei gens as Tertullian calls them, 
Tert. Apolt c. 18.  the Domestic, and peculiar people of God, like gideon's fleece, full of the dew of Divine Benediction, when all the world was dry besides: to them were the Oracles given, those Oracles which did foretell the Messiah, 
Rom. 2.3.  and by which they might more easily know him, than the Gentiles; 
Rom. 9.4.  to them pertained the adoption, for they were called the Children of God: Deut. 14.1. They had the Covenant written in Tables of stone, and the giving of the Law, and constitutions, which might link, and unite them together into a body and society, and the service of God, they had their sacrifices, but especially the Paschal Lamb; and that their memory might not let slip his statutes, and Ordinances, he doth even Catechise their eyes, and makes the least Ceremony a busy remembrancer. Behold a Tabernacle erected, Aaron and his sons appointed, the Sacrifices slain, the Altars smoking, all so many Ocular Sermons. They may behold Aaron and his sons ascending the Temple, laying all their sins upon the head of a sacred Goat, and so carrying them out of the City; they might behold him entering the vail with Reverence: His garments, 
Hier. ad Fabiol. de vestit. sacerd.  his motion, his Gesture, all were vocal, quicquid agebat, quiequid loquebatur, doctrina erat populi, saith Saint Jerom, his Actions were didactical as well as his Doctrine, and the priest himself was a Sermon, and these were as so many antidotes against death. The 23. and 26. v. of this Chapter, the Prophet reproveth them for their capital, and mortal sins, Adultery, murder, and Idolatry, and God had sufficiently instructed, and fortified them against these. He forbade lust, not only in the Decalogue, but in the S●arrow Levit. 11. murder in the Vulture and Raven, 
Novatian. de cib. Judacicis  and those Birds of prey, ut Israelitae murdareatur pecora culpatasunt, to sanctify and cleanse his people he blames the Beasts, as unclean (which they could not be of themselves, because he made them) and lays a Blemish upon his other Creatures, to keep them underfiled, and for to keep our Idolatry, he busied them in those many ceremonies, 
1 a. 1ae.  which he ordained for that end, ne vacaret Idololatriae servire saith Aquin. that they might not have the least leisure to be Idolaters: So that (to draw up all) they might learn from the Law, they might learn from the Priest, they might learn from the Sacrifice, they might learn from each Ceremony; they might learn from men, and they might learn from beasts, to Turn from their evil ways, 
Isal. 5.4.  and God might well cry out Quid facerem quod non fecerim? what could I have done, that I have not done? and speak to them in his grief, and wrath, and indignation. Quare etc. why will ye die Oh House.  
O house of Israel?  
But to pass from the Synagogue to the Church, which excels merito fidei, et majoris scientiae, in respect of a clearer faith, and larger knowledge; to come to the time of Reformation, 
Heb. 9.10.  in which all things which pertain to the full happiness of God's people, was to be raised to their last height and perfection, to look into the Law of liberty, which lets usnot lose in our own evil ways, but makes us most free by restraining and tying us up, and withholding us from those sins, which the Law of Moses did not punish; and here Why will ye die? if it were before an obtestation, it is now, a bitter Sarcasme, as bitter as death itself. It is here improved and drove home a minori ad majus, by the Apostle himself, for if that which should be abolished was glorious, 
2 Cor. 3 11.  much more shall that which remains, whose fruit is everlasling, be glorious. And again, If they escaped not who resused him, who spoke on earth, from mount Sinai, by his Angel; 
Acts. 7.38.  how shall not we escape, if we turn away from him who spoke from Heaven by his Son? For the Church is a house, but far more glorious, built upon the Foundation of the Apostles and Prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the head corner stone, in whom all the building coupled together groweth into a Temple of the Lord. 
Colos. 2.20.21.  the whole world besides are but rubbage, as bones scattered at the graves mouth. The Church is compact, knit, and united into a house, and in this house is the Armoury of God, ubi mille clipei, & armatura fortium, where are a thousand Bucklers, and all the weapons of the mighty to keep off death, the helmet of Salvation, the sword of the Spirit, and the shield of Faith to quench all the Fiery Darts of Satan; as they be delivered into our hands, Eph. 6.  
And as it is a House, 
Eph. 3.5  so is it a Family of Christ, of whom all the Family of heaven and earth is named; who is M 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the great Master of the Household. For as the Pythagorean, fitting and shaping out a Family by his Lute, required 1. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the integrity of all the parts, as it were the set number of the strings; 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an apt composing and joining them together, as it were the Tuning of the instrument; and lastly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a skilful touch, which makes the harmony: So in the Church, if we take it in its latitude, there be Saints, Angels, and Archangels, if we contract it to the Militant (as we usually take it) there be some Apostles, some Pastors, some Prophets, some Teachers: Eph. 4. there be some to be Taught, and some to teach; some to be governed, and some to rule, which makes up the integrity of the parts, and then these are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, saith the Apostle, coupled and and knit together by every joint, by the bond of charity, which is the coupling and uniting virtue, as Prosper calls it, by the unity of faith, by their agreement in holiness, having one faith, one Baptism, one Lord, and at last every string being touched in its right place, begets a harmony, which is delightful both to heaven and earth.  
For when I name the Church, I do not mean the stones and building (some indeed would bring it down to this, to stand for nothing, but the walls) but I suppose a subordination of parts (which was never yet questioned in the Church, but by those, who would make it as invisible, as their Charity) Not the foot to see, and the eye to walk, and the Tongue to hear, and the Ear to speak, not all Apostles, not all Prophets, not all Teachers, but as the Apostle says it shall be at the Resurrection, Every man in his own Order. 
Naz. Or. 25.  For 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉— Order is our security and safeguard; in a rout, every man is a Child of Death, every throat open to the Knife, but when an Army is drawn out by Art and skill, all hands are active for the Victory: Inequality indeed of persons is the ground of disunion and discord, but Order draws and works advantage out of Inequality itself; when every man keeps his station, the common Soldier hath his Interest in the victory, as well as the Commander, and when we walk orderly, every man in his own place, we walk hand in Hand to Heaven and Happiness together.  
For further yet; In the Church of God, there is not only a union, an Order, but as it is in our Creed, a Communion of parts; The glorious Angels, as ministering Spirits, are sent to guard us, and no doubt, do many and great services for us, though we perceive it not; The blessed Saints departed, though we may not pray for them, yet may pray for us, though we hear it not, and though the Church be scattered in its Members, through all the parts of the world, yet their hearts meet in the same God. Every man prays for himself, and every man prays for every man. Quodest Omnium, esi singulorum, that which is all men's, is every man's, and that which is every man's, belongs unto the whole.  
For though we cannot speak in those high Terms of the Church, as the Church of Rome doth of herself, yet we cannot but bless God, and count it a great favour, and privilege, that we are filii Ecclesiae, as the Father speaks, Children of the Church, think of ourselves, as in a place of safety and advantage, where we may find protection against Death itself. We cannot speak loud with the Cardinal, si Catholicus quisquam labitur in peccatum; and, 
Bellarm praefar. ad Controv.  If a Catholic fall into a sin, suppose it Theft, or Adultery, yet in that Church, he walketh not in Darkness, but may see many helps to salvation, by which he may soon quit himself out of the snare of the Devil, maternus ei non deest assectus, she is still a Mother, even to such Children; her shops of spiritual comfort lie open; there you may buy Wine and Milk, Indulgences and Absolution, but not without money, or money-worth; be you as sick as you will, and as oft as you will, There is Physic, there are Cordials to refresh, and restore you: I dare not promise so much in the House of Israel, in the Church of Christ, for I had rather make the Church a School of Virtue, than a Sanctuary for Offenders, and wanton sinners. We dare not give it that strength, to carry up our Prayers to the Saints in heaven, or to convey their Merits to us on Earth: we cannot work and temper it to that heat, to draw up the blood of Martyrs, or the works of supererogating Christians (who have been such profitable servants, that they did more in the service of God, than they should) into a common Treasury, and then shower them down in Pardons, and Indulgences; but yet, though we cannot find this power the re (which is a Power to do nothing) yet we may find strength enough in the Church to keep us from the Moriemini, to save us from Death: Though I cannot suffer for my Brother, yet I may bear for him, 
Gal. 6.2.  even portare onus fratris, bear my brother's burden; Though I cannot merit for him, yet I may work for him; though I cannot die for him, I may pray for him. Though there be no good in my Death, nor profit in my Dust, yet there may be in my memory of my good Counsel, my Advice, my Example, which are verae sanctorum reliquiae, 
Consult. Cass. c. de Relig. 5.  saith Cassander, the best and truest relics of the Saints; and though my Death cannot satisfy for him, yet it may Catechise him, and teach him how to die; nay, teach him how to overcome Death, that he shall not die for ever: and by this Communion it is, that we work Miracles; that in Turning the Covetous, turning his bowels in him, we recover a dry Hand, and a narrow Heart; in teaching the Ignorant, we give sight to the blind; in settling the inconstant, wavering mind, we cure the palsy; for we can well allow of such Miracles as these in the Church, but not of Lies.  
For as there is an Invisible union of the Saints with God, so is there of Christians amongst themselves, which union, though the Eye of flesh cannot behold it, yet it must appear, and shine, and be resplendent in those duties and offices which do attend this union, which are as so many Hands, by which we lift up one another to happiness; As the Head infuseth life and vigour into the whole body, so must the members also anoint each other with this Oil of Gladness. Each member must be Active and Industrious to express that Virtue, without which it cannot be one. Let no man seek his own, but every man another's Wealth, saith the Apostle; not seek his own? 
1 Cor. 10.24.  what more natural to man? or who is nearer to him, than he himself? but yet he must not seek his own, but as it may bring advantage, and promote the Good of others; not press forward to the mark, but with his hand stretched forth, to carry on others along with him, not go to Heaven, but saving some with fear, and pulling others out of the fire, 
Ep. jud. 23.  and gathering up as many, as his Wisdom and care, and zeal towards God and man can take up with him in the way. And this is necessary, even in humane Societies, and those Politic Bodies, which men build up to themselves, for their Peace and security, Turpis est pars, quae toti suo non Convenit, that is a most unnecessary superfluous part or Member, for which the whole is not the better; ut in sermone literae, saith Austin, as letters in a word or Sentence, so men are Elementa Civitatis, the principles and parts which make up the Syntaxis of a Republic, and he that endeavours not the advancement of the whole, is a Letter too much; fit to be expunged and blotted out; but in the Church, whose maker and Builder is God, it is required in the highest degree, especially in those transactions which may enlarge the Circuit and glory of it: here every man must be his own, and under Christ, his Brother's Saviour; for as between these two Cities, so between the happiness of the one, and the happiness of the other, there is no Comparison. As therefore every Bishop in the former Ages, called himself Episcopum Catholicae Ecclesiae, a Bishop of the Catholic Church, although he had Jurisdiction but over one Diocese, so the care and Piety of every particular Christian, in respect of its diffusive Operation, is as Catholic as the Church, every soul he meets with, is under his charge, and he is the care of every soul; in saving a soul from Death, every man is a Priest and a Bishop, although he may neither invade the Pulpit, or ascend the Chair: I may be eyes unto him, 
Numb. 10.31.  as it was said of Hobab: I may take him from his Error, and put him into the way of truth; if he fear, I may scatter it; If he grieve, I may wipe off his Tears; If he presume, I may teach him to fear, and if he despair, I may lift him up to a lively Hope, that neither fear nor grief, neither Presumption, nor despair swallow him up: thus may I raise a dead man from the grave, a sinner from his sin, and by that example many may rise with him, who are as dead as he, and so by his friendly communication transfuse ourselves into others, and receive others into ourselves, and so run hand in hand from the Chambers of Death.  
And thus far we dare extend the Communion of Saints, place it in a House, a Family, a society of men called and gathered together by Christ; raise it to the participation of the Privileges and Charters granted by Christ; calling us to the same faith, leading us by the same rule, filling us with the same Grace, endowing us with several Gifts, that we may guard and secure each other; and so settle it in thee Offices and Duties, which Christianity makes common, and God hath registered in his Church, which is the Pillar of Truth; where all men's Joys and Sorrows, and Fears, and Hopes should be one and the same; And then to die surrounded with all these Helps, and Advantages, of God above, ready to Help us; of men like unto ourselves, pressed out as auxiliaries to secure and relieve us, of Precepts to guide us, of Promises to encourage us, of Heaven even opening itself to recerve us, then to die, is to die as fools die, to suffer their hands to be bound, and their feet put in fetters, and to open their Breast to the sword: for to die alone, is not so grievous, not so imputable, as to die in such Company, to die, where 'tis no more but to will it, and I might live for ever. Oh how were it to be wished, that we well understood this one Article of our Faith, the Communion of Saints, that we knew to be Vessels to receive the water of Life, and Conduits to convey it, that we would remember that by every sin, we bring trouble to a Million of Saints, and by our Obedience make as many Angels merry; That when we spend our portion amongst Harlots, we do not only beggar ourselves, but rob and spoil our Brethren; when we yield ourselves to the enemy, we betray an Army; that we knew what 'twere to give Counsel, and what 'twere to receive it, what it were to shine upon others, and to walk by their light, that we knew the Power, the Necessity of a Precept, the riches and Glory of a Promise; that we would consider ourselves, as men amongst men invited to happiness, invited to the same Royal FeasT; if this were rightly considered, we should then ask ourselves the question! why should we die? why should we die! not in the wilderness amongst beasts, upon our Turf or stone, where there is none to help; but in domo Israelis, in a House, and in the House of Israel, where Health and safety appears in every room, & corner? why should we fall, like Samson, with the house upon us, and so endanger, and bruise others with our fall? If I be a string, why should I jar, and spoil the Harmony? If I be a part, why should I be made a Schism from the body? if I be under Command, why should I beat my fellow-servants? If a member, why should I walk disorderly in the Family? why should I? why should any Die in Domo Israelis? in the House of Israel?  
And now to reassume the Text; Why will ye die oh House of Israel? What a fearful exprobration is it? what can it work in us, but shame and confusion of Face? Why will you die? you that have Christ for your Physician, the Angels for your Ministers, the Saints for your Example, the Church a common shop of precious Balm, and Antidotes, who are in Domo Israelis, in the House of Israel, where you may learn from the Priest, learn from the Oracles of God, learn from one another, learn from Death itself, not to die? In this House, in this Order, in this Union, in this Communion, in the midst of all these auxiliary Troops to fall and miscarry; to have the Light, 
Quale est de Ecclesiâ Dei in Ecclesiam Diaboli tendered? de coelo in coenum? Tert. de spect. c. 25. Aug de Civit. Dei l. 14. c. 15.  but not to see it, the bread of Life, but not to Taste it, to die with our Antidotes about us, to go per portam coeli in Gehennam, thorough the House of Israel into Tophet, thorough the Church of Christ into Hell, may well put God to ask Questions, and expostulate, and can argue no less than a stubborn and relentless heart, and not only a Defect, but a distaste and hatred of that Piety, quae una est sapientia in hac Domo, which is the only Wisdom, and most useful in the House of Israel, which is our best strength against our Enemy, Death.  
And here to apply this to ourselves; let us compare the state of the House of Israel, with the state of the people of this Nation, and Jerusalem with this City, and we may say, what could he have done more for us, which he hath not done? only his Blessings and privileges will rise and swell, and exceed on our side, and so make our Ingratitude, and Gild the greater. They had their Priests and Levites, we have our Pastors and Ministers. They had their Temple and Synagogues, we our Parochial Churches. They had their Sacraments, Circumcision and the Paschall Lamb, we Baptism and the Lords Supper. They had Moses preached in their Synagogues, every Sabbath Day, so have we; (I speak like a Fool) we have more, the Gospel Interpreted, or abused every Sabbath Day, nay, every day of the week, I had almost said, every hour of the day; we are Baptised with a Sermon, and we are married with a Sermon, and we are buried with a Sermon. When we take our journey, a Sermon is our farewell, and when we return, it is our welcome home. If we Feast, a Sermon is the Grace before it, if we sail, a Sermon must weigh Anchor; and if we fight, a Sermon is the Alarm to Battle; If we rejoice, we call to the Preacher to Pipe to us, that we may dance (for many times we choose our Preachers, as we do our Musicians by the Ear and fancy, not by judgement; and it must needs be a rare choice, which a Woman & ignorance makes) and such an one is to us as a lovely song of one that hath a very pleasant voice, Ezek. 33.1. and if we be in Grief, he must turn the key and change his note, and mourn to us, that we may lament. A Sermon is the grand Salad, to usher in every dish; like Sosia or Davus in the Comedy, scarce any Scene, or part of our life without it: It is Prologus Galeatus, a Prologue that will fit either Comedy or Tragedy, every purpose, every Action, every business of our Life. In a word; what had they, which we have not in measure pressed down? They had the Favour, and Countenance of God, They had the blessings of the Basket, so had we, if we could have pinned it, and kept them in, and not played the wantoness in this light, and so let them fly away from us, that we can but look after them, and sadly say, we had them; They had Temporal blessings, we have Graces and spiritual endowments, more light, and richer Promises; more and more Gracious Privileges than they; Their Administration was with Glory, but burrs is more glorious. Glorious things are spoken of this City, glorious things are seen amongst us, able to deceive a Prophet, nay, if it were possible, the very Elect: For he that shall see our outward formality, the earnestness, the demureness, the talkativeness of our looks and behaviour, when we flock and press to Sermons; he that shall hear our noise and zeal for Religion, our anger and detestation against Idolatry, even where it is not; he that shall scarcely hear a word from us, which sounds not as the word of God, he that should see us such Saints abroad, would little mistrust we should come so short of the honesty of the Pagans in our shops and deal; He that shall see such a promising form of godliness cannot presently discover the malice, the fraud, the uncleanness, the cruelty that lies wrapped up in it, like a Devil in light; He that shall see this, in the City, cannot but say of it, as the Prophet Samuel did of Eliab; Surely the Lords anointed is here. This is the faithful City; This is the City of the Lord. But God seethe not, as man seeth, nor looks on the outward appearance but the Heart, and may account us dead for all these glories, this Pageantry, for all this noise, which to him is but noise, as the sound of their Trumpet, who will not fight his battles, but fall off, and run to the Enemy, but as a song of Zion in a strange Land, even in the midst of Babylon. We read in our Books that it was a custom amongst the Romans, when the Emperor was dead in honour of him to frame his image of wax, and to perform to it all Ceremonies of state, as if the image were the living Emperor; The Senate and Ladies attended; the Physicians resorted to him to feel his pulse, and Doctorally resolved that he grew worse and worse, and could not escape; A guard watched him, Nobles saluted him, his Dinner and Supper at accustomed hours was served in with water, with sewing, and carving and taking away; His Nobles and Gentlemen waited as if he had been alive, there was no Ceremony forgot which state might require; Thus hath been done to a dead carcase, and if we take not heed, our case may be the same; All our outward shows of Churches, of Sermons, of Sacraments, our noise and ostentation, which should be arguments of life and Antidotes against death, may be no more, then as funeral rites performed to a carcase, to a Christian, to a City whose iniquities are loathsome, of an ill smelling savour to God; the great company of preachers (whereof every one chooseth one according to his lusts) may stand about it, and do their duty, but as to an image of wax, or a dead carcase; the bread of life may be served in, and divided to it by art and skill, as every man fancies, it may be fitted and prepared for every palate when they have no taste, nor relish of it, and receive no more nourishment, than they that have been dead long ago. Be not deceived, benefits and burdens (thou hast laden me daily with thy benefits, saith David) and burdens which, if we bore not well, and as we should do, will grind us to pieces: All prerogatives are with conditions, & if the condition be not kept, they turn to scorpions, they either heal or kill us, they either lift us up to Bliss, or throw us down to destruction: there is Heaven in a privilege, and there is Hell in a privilege, and we make it either to us: We may starve, whilst we hang on the breasts of the Church, we may be poisoned with Antidotes, those mouths that taught us, may be opened to accuse us, the many Sermons we heard, may be so many Bills against us; the Sacraments may condemn us, the blood of Christ cry loud against us, and our profession, our holy profession put us to shame. Hast thou been so long with me, and knowest thou not me Philip? saith our Saviour. John 14.9. Hadst thou so good a Master, and art yet to learn? hast thou been so long with me, and deniest thou me Peter? hast thou been so long with me, and yet betrayest me Judas? hath Christ wrought so many works amongst us, and do we go about to kill and crucify him? hath he planted Religion, true Religion amongst us, and do we go about to dig it up by the roots? hath the Gospel sounded so long in our Ears, and begot nothing but words? words that are deceitful upon the Balance? words which are lies? so many Sermons, and so many Atheists? so much Preaching and so much defrauding? so many breathe and Demonstrations of love, and so much malice in the house of Israel? so many Courts of Justice, and so much oppression? so many Churches, and so few Temples of the Holy Ghost? what? profess Religion, and shame it? cry it up, and smother it in the noise? and for a member of Christ, make thyself the head of a Faction? what? press on to make thyself better, and make thyself worse? Go up to the Temple to pray, and profane it? what? go to Church, and there learn to pull it down? why, Oh Why will ye thus die O house of Israel?  
Oh then, let us look about us with a thousand eyes, Let us be wise and consider what we are, and where we are; That we are a house, and so ought, every man to fill, and make good his place, and murually support each other; that we are a Family, and must be active in those offices, which are proper to us, and so with united forces keep death from entering in; That we are the Israel of God, his chosen people, chosen therefore, that we may not cast away ourselves; That we are his Church, which is the pillar, 
1 Tim. 3.15.  and ground of truth, a pillar to lean on, that we fall not, and holding out, and urging the truth, which is able to save us, that we may not die. We have his word to quicken us, his Sacraments to strengthen and confirm us; his Grace to prevent, and follow us; we have many helps, and Huge advantages, and if we look up upon them, and lay hold of them; If we hearken to his word, not resist his grace, if we neither Idolise, not profane his Sacraments, but receive them with Reverence, as they were instituted in Love; If we hear the Church, if we hear one another, if we confirm one another, if we watch over ourselves and one another, Death shall have, can nave no more Dominion over us; we shall not, we cannot die at all; but as many as thus walk in the common light of the house of Israel; Peace shall be upon them, and mercy, and upon the Israel of God.  

The introductîon to the last part.  And now we must draw towards a conclusion, and we must conclude and shut up all in nobis ipsis in ourselves; for if we die, it is quia volumus, because we will die; For Look above us, and there is God, the living God, the God of life, saying to us, Live: Look before us, and there is death breathing terror, to drive us from it, showing us his Dart, that we may hold up our buckler: Look about us, there are armouries of weapons, treasuries of wisdom, shops of Physic, Balm and Ointments; helps and advantages, pillars and supporters to uphold us, that we may stand, and not fall into the pit, which opens its mouth, but will shut it again, if we fly from it; which is not, cannot be, is nothing; if we do not dig it ourselves. The Church exhorts, instructs, corrects; God calls, invites, expostulates, death itself threatens us, that we may not come near; Thus are we compassed about auxiliorum nube, with a Cloud of helps and Advantages, the Church is loud, death is terrible, Gods Nolo is loud, I will not the death of a sinner, and confirmed with an Oath, As he lives, he would not have us die, and it is plain enough, in his Lightning and in his Thunder, in his expostulations, and wishes, in his anger, in his grief, in his spreading out his hands, in his administration of all means sufficient to protect and guard us from it, and excludes all stoical fate, all necessity of sinning or dying; there is nothing above us, nothing before us, nothing about us, which can necessitate, or bind us over to death, so that if we die, it is in our volo, in our will; we die for no other reason, but that which is not reason, quia volumus, because we will die.  
We have now brought you to the very Cell, and Den of death, where this monster was framed, and fashioned, where 'twas first conceived, brought forth, and nursed up: I have discovered to you the Original, and beginnings of sin, whose natural issue is death, and shut it up in one word, the will; that which hath so troubled, and amuzed men in all the ages of the Church, to find out; That which some have sought in Heaven, in the bosom of God, as if his Providence had a hand in it, and others have raked Hell, and made the devil the Author of it, who is but a persuader, a solicitor to promote it; that which others have tied to the chain of Destiny, whose links are filled by the fancy alone, and made up of air, and so not strong enough to bind men, much less the Gods themselves (as 'tis said) what many have busied themselves in a painful and unnecessary search to find out, opening the windows of Heaven to find it there, running to and fro about the universe to find it there, and searching Hell itself to discover it, we may discover in our own Breasts, in our own heart, the will the womb that conceives this Monster, this Viper, which eats through it, and Destroys the Mother in the Birth; For that which is the beginning of Action, is the beginning of sin, and that which is the beginning of sin, is the cause of Death. In homine quicquid est, sibi proficit, 
Hilar. in Ps. 118.  saith Hilary, there is nothing in man, Nothing in the world, which he may not make use of to avoid and prevent Death, and In homine quic-quid est, sibi nocet, there is nothing in man, nothing in the world, which he may not make an occasion and Instrument of sin; That which hurts him, may help him; That which Circumspection and Diligence may make an Antidote, neglect and Carelessness may Turn into Poison: 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Basil, as goodness, so sin is the work of our will, not of Necessity, If they were wrought in us against our will, there could be neither Good, nor Evil. I call Heaven and Earth to witness, saith GOD, by his Servant Moses; I have set before you Life and Death, Blessing, and cursing; 
Deut. 30.19.  and what is it to set it before them, but to put it to themselves, to put it into their own Hands, to put it to their choice? Choose then which you will; The Devil may tempt, the Law occasion sin; 
Rom. 7.11.  the Flesh may be weak; Temptations may show themselves; but not any of these, not all of these can bring in a necessity of Dying: For the Qeustion or Expostulation doth not run thus, Why are you under a Law? why are you weak? or why are you Dead? for Reasons may be given for all these, and the Justice and Wisdom of God will stand up to defend them; but the Question is, Why Will ye die? for which there can be no other Reason given, but our Will.  
And here we must make a stand, and take our rise from this one word, this one syllable, our Will, for upon no larger foundation than this, we either build ourselves up into a Temple of the Lord, or into that Tower of Babel and Confusion, which God will Destroy.  
We see here, all is laid upon the Will: But such is our Folly and madness; so full of Contradictions is a wilful sinner, that though he call Death unto him both with words, and works; though he be found guilty, and sentence of Death passed upon him, yet he cannot be wrought into such a persuasion, 
Tert. Apol. c. 1.  That he was ever willing to Die; nolumus nostrum, quia malum Agnoscimus, we will not call sin ours, because we know it Evil; and so are bold to exonerate and unload ourselves upon God himself. 'Tis true, there is light, but we are blind, and cannot see it; There is Comfort sounds every where, but we are deaf and cannot hear it, There is supply at hand, but we are bound and fettered, and can make no use of it; There is Balm in Gilead, but we are lame, and have no hand to apply it. We complain of our natural weakness; of our want of Grace and Assistance; when we might know the Danger we are in; we plead Ignorance, when we willingly yield our Members servants to sin, we have learned to say, we did not do it, plenâ voluntate, with a full Consent and will, and what God hath clothed with Death, we cloth with the fair Gloss of a good Intention, and meaning; we complain of our Bodies, and of our Souls, as if the Wisdom of God had failed in our Creation; we would be made after another fashion, that we might be good, and yet when we might be good, we will be evil; And these Webs a sick and unsanctifyed Fancy will soon spin out; These are Receipts, and Antidotes of our own Tempering, devised and made use of against the Gnawings of Conscience: These we study, and are ready and expert in, and when Conscience gins to open, and chide, these are at hand to quiet it, and to put it to silence; we carry them about for ease, and comfort, but to as little purpose, as the women in Chrysostoms' time, bound the coins of Alexander the Great, or some part of Saint John's Gospel to ease them of the Headache; for by these Receipts, and spells we more envenom our souls, and draw nearer to Death, by Thinking to fly from it, and are tenfold more the Servants of Satan, because we are willing to do him service, but not willing to wear his Livery; and thus excusando exprobramus, our Apologies defame us, our false Comforts destroy us, and we condemn ourselves with an Excuse.  
To draw then the lines, by which we are to pass; we will take off the Moriemini, the cause of our Death from these. First, from our Natural weakness. Secondly, from the Deficiency of Grace; for neither can our Natural weakness Betray, nor can there be such a want of Grace, as to enfeeble, nor hath Satan so much Power, as to force the will, and so there will be no Necessity of Dying, either in respect of our Natural weakness, or in regard of Gods strengthening hand, and withholding his Grace: and then in the second place, that neither Ignorance of our duty, nor regret, or reluctancy of Conscience, nor any pretence, or good Intention can make sin less sinful, or our Death less voluntary; and so bring Death to their Doors, who have sought it out, who have called it to them, who are Confederate with it, and are worthy to be partakers thereof. And 
Why Will you Die, O House of Israel?   
Why will ye die? we may perhaps answer, we are Dead already.  
— Haeret lateri lethalis Arundo.  
The poisoned, and Deadly Dart is in our sides: Adam sinned, and we die: Omnes eramus in illo uno, cum ille unus nos omnes perdidit, we were all in the loins of that one man Adam, when that one man slew us all. And this we are too ready to confess, that we are Borne in sin; nay, we fall so low, as to damn ourselves before we were born, which some may do in Humility, but most are well content it should be so, well pleased in their Pedigree; well pleased to be brought into the world in that filth and uncleanness, which God doth hate; and make the unhappiness of their Birth an Advocate to plead for those pollutions, for those wilful and Beloved sins, which they fall into in the remaining part of their life, as being the proper and natural Issues of that weakness, and Impotency, with which we were sent into the world; which is not True in every part; for that weakness, whatsoever it is, can draw no such necessity upon us, 
Licentiam usurpare praetexto necessitatis. Tert. de cull. Faem.  nor can be wrought into an Apology for sin, or an excuse for dying: for to include, and wrap up all our Actual sin in the folds of Original weakeness, is nothing else but to cancel our own Debts, and Obligations, and to put all upon our first Parent's score, and so make Adam guilty of the sins of the whole world. Our natural and Original weakness, I will not now call into question, since it hath had such Grandees in our Church, men of great Learning and Piety, for its Nursing Fathers, and that for many Centuries of years; but yet I cannot see why it should be made a Cloak to cover our other Transgressions, or why we should miscarry so often, with an Eye cast back upon our first fall, which is made ours, but in another man; nor any reason, though it be a plant watered by the best Hands, why men should be so delighted in it, why they should lie down, and repose themselves under its shadow; why they should be so willing to be weak, and so unwilling to hear the contrary; why men should take so much pains to make the way to happiness narrower, and the way to death broader than it is. In a word; why we should thus magnify a Temptation, and disparage ourselves, why we should make each Importunate object, as powerful and Irresistible as God himself, and ourselves as Idols, even nothing in this world. Magna pars humanarum querelarum non injusta modo materiâ, 
Petrarch. 1.3. R. S. c. 1.  sed stulta est, the world is full of complaints, and excuses, but the complaints which the world puts forth, are for the most, most unjust, and void of that reason, which should present and commend them. For when our souls are pressed down and overcharged with sin, when we feel the Gripes and Gnawings of our Conscience, we commonly lay hold on these remedies, which are worse than the disease, and suborn an unseasonable, and ill applied conceit of our own natural weakness, (which was more dangerous than the temptation) as an excuse and comfort of our overthrow, we fall and plead we were weak, and fall more than seven times a day, and hold up the same plea still, till we fall into that place where we shall be muzzled, and speechless, not able to say a word, where our complaints will end in curses, in weeping and wailing, 
Hierenym: Amando.  and gnashing of teeth. Omnes nostris vitijs favemus, & quod propriâ facimus voluntate ad naturae referimus necessitatem, we are all tender and favourable to our own sins, and because they pleased us, when we committed them, we are unwilling to revile them now; but wipe off as much of their filth as we can, because we resolve to commit them again; and those transgressions, which our lusts conceived, and brought forth by the Midwifery of our will, we remove as far as we can, and lay them at the Door of Necessity, and are ready to complain of God and Nature itself.  
Now this Complaint against nature, when we have sinned is most unjust; For God and nature hath imprinted in our Souls those common principles of goodness, as, that good is to be embraced, and evil to be abandoned; That we must do to others, as we would be done to, those practic notions, those anticipations, as the Stoics call them of the mind, 
Natura nos ad optimam mentem genuit: Quint. l. 12. Inst. c.  and preparations against sin and death, which if we did not wilfully stifle and choke, might lift up our souls far above those depressions of self love and covetousness, and those evils, which destroy us, quae ratio semel in universum vincit, which reason, with the help of Grace overcomes at once; For reason doth not only arm, and prepare us against these inroads, and incursions, against these (as we think) so violent assaults, but when we are beat to the ground, checks and upbraids us for our fall. Indeed, to look down upon ourselves, and then lift up our eyes to him, from whom cometh our salvation, is both the duty and security of the sons of Adam; and when we watch over ourselves, and keep our hearts with diligence, when we strive with our inclination, and weakness, as well as we do with the temptation, then if we fall, God remembers whereof we are made, considers our condition, that we are but men; and though we fail, his mercy endureth for ever; but to think of our weakness, and then to fall, and because we came infirm, and diseased into the world, to kill ourselves; to seek out death in the error of our life, to dally and play with danger; to be willing to join with the temptation at the first show and approach, as if we were made for no other end, and then to complain of weakness, is to charge God and nature foolishly, and not only to impute our sins to Adam, but to God himself; and thus we bankrupt ourselves, and complain we were born poor, we cripple ourselves, and then complain we are lame, we deliver up ourselves, and fall willingly under the temptation, and then pretend it was a son of Anack, too strong for such Grasshoppers as we, we delight in sin, we trade in sin, we were brought up in it, and we continue in it, and make it our companion, our friend, with which we most familiarly converse, and then comfort ourselves, and cast all the fault on our temper and constitution, and the corruption of our nature, and we attribute our full growth in sin, to that seed of sin which we should have choked, which had never shot up into the blade, and born such evil fruit, but that we manured and watered it, and were more than willing, that it should grow and multiply. And this though it be a great sin, as being the mother of all those misshapen births, those Monsters, which walk about the world, we dress and deck up, and give it a fair and glorious name, and call it Humility, which is, saith Hilary, the hardest and greatest work of our faith, to which it is so unlike, that it is the greatest enemy it hath, and every day weakens, and disenables it, that it doth not work by charity, but leaves us Captives to the world, and sin, which but for this conceit, it would easily vanquish, and tread down under our feet. We may call it Humility, but it is Pride; a stubborn, 
Humilitas maximum Fidei opus Hil. in Ps. 130.  and insolent standing out with God that made us, upon this foul, and unjust pretence, that he made us so, humilitas sophistica, saith Pet. Blasensis, the humility of Hypocrites, which at once bows, and pusheth out the horn, in which we disgrace and condemn ourselves, that we may do what we please, and speak evil of ourselves, that we may be worse; Oh wretched men that we are, we groan it out, and there is music in the sound, which we hear, and delight in, and carry along in our mind, and so become wretched indeed, even those miserable sinners, which will ever be so. And shall we call this Humility? 
Ep. ad Colos. 2.18.  if it be, it is as the Apostle speaks, a voluntary humility, (but in a worse sense) he is the humblest man, that doth his duty; for that Humility which is commended to us in Scripture, lets us up to heaven, this, which is is so Epidemical, sinks us into the lowest pit; that Humility bows us down with sorrow; this binds our hands with sloth; that looks upon our imperfections past, this makes way for more to come; that ventures and condemns itself, condemns itself and ventures further; this runs out of the field, and dare not look upon the enemy; nec mirum, si vincantur, qui jam victi sunt, and it is no marvel, they should fall, and perish, whom their own so low and groundless opinion hath already overthrown.  
For first, though I deny not a derived weakness, and from Adam, though I leave it not after Baptism as subsistent by itself, or bound to the Centre of the earth with the Manichee, nor washed to nothing in the Font with others, yet 'tis easy to deceive ourselves, and to think it more contagious than it is, more operative, more destructive than it would be, if we would shake off this conceit, and rouse ourselves, and stand up against it, & ignavia nostr fortis est, and it may be, it is our sloth, and Cowardice, that makes it strong; for certainly, there must be more force than this hath, to make us so wicked as many times we are, and there be more promoters of the kingdom of Darkness in us, then that which we brought with us into the world. Lord, what a noise hath Original sin made amongst the sons of Adam? and what ill use hath been made of it? When this Lion roars, all the Beasts of the Forest tremble, and yet are beasts still; we hear of it, and are astonished, and become worse and worse, and yet there are but few, that exactly know what it is: when we are Infants, we do not know that we are so, no more than the Tree doth, that it grows, much less can we discover what poison we brought with us into the world, which, as it is the nature of some kind of poison, though it have no visible operation for the present, may some years after break forth from the head to the foot, in swell, and sores full of corruption, and not be fully purged out to our lives end. Again, in the opening and dawning of our reason, we have scarce so much light, as to see ourselves by, and we understand little more than the rod, which we soon forget, and boldly venture upon the same fault, for which we felt it, and should count it a virtue and our bounden duty to do it, but for the smart it brings with it, which yet can work in us little conscience of guilt. And then in our riper age, our blood runs in our veins with more heat, and we are active, and strong to act over them with some sense and feeling, which we learned but imperfectly in our nonage, which our Nurse prattled into us, which servants read to us with a licentious tongue, and wanton behaviour; and many times we repeat and express those rudiments and principles of thrift, which those who are set over us do commonly first teach, and we show ourselves as perfect in them, as those old Gray-headed Atheists, that taught them. These we take up betimes; Wantonness, Revenge, love of the world, and being used unto them, they are no burdens, and if at any time they wring us, we have learned so much at Church, as to cast them off upon Adam, to ease ourselves with the remembrance of our natural weakness, though we know not what it is, nor have learned it half so perfectly, as we have done those other lessons, which have no evil in them, as we think, but that which is of ancient extraction, derived from the first evil, that was ever seen under the Sun. But then in our old age, which is a complication, and collection of all sins, as well as diseases, how should a dim eye discover it in the midst of so many evil habits wreathed and plaited one within another, covetousness wrought in with luxury, and with luxury, cruelty, each thwarting, and yet friendly complying the one with the other? can we now say that these sins were thus multiplied, and raised to such a height by the power and continued force of that fatal Legacy, which our first Parents left us? or was this the best crown wherewith our mothers crowned us in the day of our conception? can we labour and toil? can we affect and study sin? can we make it our business? our ambition to walk in our evil ways, and say, that we were put in them from the beginning, and forced forward by the violent hand, that first put us in? Indeed, the old man, the old sinner is glad to hear of another Old man, although he never intent to Crucify him, nor well understands what it is: no more than the vulgar do Anti-christ, which in their fancy is a Beast, and hath horns; The multitude of years (though Age be talkative,) yet many times know no more of this primitive, and so much famed evil, than they who were but of yesterday. For even they who have been brought up in Nob, in the City and University of Priests, have not all agreed in their discovery of this evil, but have presented it in so many shapes, that it will be hard to choose, and say this is the right, this, this it is: I am sure their opinions and more, than the sins can be, which Original sin doth necessarily bring into act. The Ana-Baptists in the days of our forefathers called it Somnium Augustini, Saint Augustine's dream; 
See Melanct. l. c. de perc.  some make it a sin, and some a punishment only, some make it both; some have made it to be nothing but the want and deprivation of Original righteousness, or an habitual aversion, and obliquity of the will; others have made it the image of the devil; There be, that conceived the whole essence of man to be corrupted; there be that make it an Accident, and there have been that have made it a substance, and there have not been wanting those, who have made it nothing; All agree in this; that there is something in us which we must strive to subdue, and keep under, some call it our natural inclination, which may be the matter of virtue as well as of vice; others Original sin, which to yield to, is to die, but to curb, and restrain, to fight against and to conquer, is the great work and Business of a Christian.  
I speak not this to take away our Original weakness, but to take it away from Being an excuse; For in the Second place, our Natural weakness is so fare from excusing our sin, or making it less voluntary, That we are bound by our very profession, to Crucify this Old Adam in us, to mortify our Earthly Members and lusts, non exerere quod Nati sumus, not to be, what indeed we are, to be in the Body, but out of the Body, to Tame the wantonness of the Flesh: for did we not for this give up our names unto Christ? were we not Baptised in this Faith? It is my Melancholy, saith the Envious, It is my Choler; saith the Revenger; It is my Blood, saith the wanton; it is my Appetite, saith the Glutton; and so every man runs on in his own ways, because the wind that drives him, comes from no other Treasury, but himself, no other corner, but his corrupt heart; fructu peccatorum utuntur, ipsa subducunt, they are content to reap the fruit and pleasure of sin, but withdraw the sin itself, and remove it out of the way: But this is not the right use of our natural weakness, which may be left in us, but (as all agree) to Humble, not disarm us, to show we are men, weak and impotent in ourselves, not to make us proud and Rebellious against our God, but to set us upon our Guard, and make us bestir ourselves, and call up all our Forces, and send our Prayers, as Ambassadors to Heaven for help and succour, against this Inmate, and Domestic Enemy. The Envious should purge his Melancholy, and rejoice with them that rejoice, and weep with them that weep: The Choleric should bridle his Anger, and make it set before the Sun; The wanton quench that fire in his Blood, and make himself an Eunuch for the Kingdom of Heaven; 
Julian. Antiochens.  the Glutton, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, wage war with his Appetite, and set a knife to his Throat; If this care were General, if we understood Christianity aright, and did strive and struggle with ourselves (the best Contention in the world) If we did do an Act of Justice upon ourselves, perform that Judicatory part of the Gospel, labour to bind this Old Man in Chains, and Crucify the flesh, with the Lusts and Affections, we should not complain, or rather speak so contentedly of Adam's fall, not bemoan ourselves, and yet be pleased well enough in it; nor take that Doctrine with the left hand, which is offered to us with the right, or, as he spoke in the Historian, sinistrâ Dextram amputare, Cut off our right Hand with our left, and by a sinister, and unnecessary Conceit of our own weakness, rob and deprive ourselves of that strength, which might have defended us from sin and Death, which now is voluntary, because we cannot derive it from any other Fountain, than our own Wills.  
For last of all; Be the Blemishes in the understanding and will, which we are said to receive by Adam's fall, what they may be either by certain knowledge, or conjecture, yet we shall not die, unless we will; And if such we were all; yet now we are washed, now we are sanctified, now we are Justified in the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ, 
1 Cor. 6.11.  and the Leper, who is cleansed, complains no more of his disease, but returns to give Thanks; The blind man, who is cured, doth not run into the Ditch, and impute it to his former Blindness, but rejoiceth that he can now see the Light, and walketh by the light he sees; and we cannot without foul Ingratitude Deny, but what we lost in Adam, we recovered again in Christ, and that improved and exalted many degrees; For not as the offence, so is also the gift, saith the Apostle; For as by the offence of one, many were made sinners, that is, 
Rom. 5.15.  were under the wrath of God, and so considered, as if they had themselves committed that sin, so by the Obedience of One, many shall be made righteous, made so, not only by Imputation, That we would have, and nothing else; have sin removed, and be sinners still) but made so, that is, supplied with all Helps, and with all strength that is necessary, and sufficient to forward, and perfect those Duties of Piety, which are required at the hands of a Justified person: for do we not magnify the Gospel from the abundance of light, and Grace which it affords? Do we not count the last Adam stronger than the First? Is not he able to cast down all the strong holds, all the Towering Imaginations which flesh and blood, though Tainted in the womb, can set up against him; and therefore, if we be truly (what we profess ourselves) Christians, this weakness cannot hurt us, and if it Hurt us, it is because we are not Christians.  
To conclude: If in Adam we were all lost, In Christ we are come home, and brought near to heaven, & post Jesum Christum, when we have given up our Names unto Christ, and profess ourselves members of that Mystical body, whereof he is the head, all our Complaints of weakness, and disability to move in our several places, is vain and unprofitable, and Injurious to the Gospel of Christ, which is the Power of God unto Salvation; and a gross and angerous error it is, when we run on, and please ourselves in our Evil ways, to complain of our Hereditary Infirmities, and the weakness and imperfection of nature; For God may yet breathe his Complaints and Expostulations against every son of Adam that will not Turn; Though you are weak; Though you have received a bruise by the fall of your first Parents, yet in me is your strength, and then, Why will you die oh House of Israel?  
We must now remove those other pretences of Flesh and Blood; But in our next and last Part.    

THE TWELFTH SERMON.  

PART VIII.  EZEKIEL 33.11. 
Turn ye, Turn ye from your evil ways: For why will you die, Oh House of Israel?  
We are told, and can tell ourselves, that Sin is a burden; and he that lies under a Burden, seeks Ease; nor doth he always ask Counsel of his reason to choose that, which is made and fitted to remove it; but through the importunate irksomeness of his pain, he lays hold of that which is next, and that's the best: though it leave him under the same load, and pressure, and all his Art and continuance hath gained no more than this, That he thinks it lighter than it was; when it is the same, but with a large addition of weight. And thus we sin, but cannot persuade ourselves we were willing to sin: we run upon our death, and yet 'tis that which both our eye and our will abhors: we die; for, 1. we were born weak, 2. We want means to avoid it, 3. We want light to see our ways; 4. We walk on in them, but we walk in pain, and though we make no stop, yet we have many a check; we would not, and yet we will go on, we condemn ourselves for what we do, and do it; and last of all we seek death, but we mean life, we do those things, whose end is death, but to a good end, and so make our way to heaven through hell itself, intent well, and do those things which can have no other wages but death. These are pillows which we sew under our own elbows; Original weakness; want of grace; ignorance of our ways: the reluctancy of our Conscience, which we call Involuntarines; and if these be not soft and easy enough to sleep on, we bring in a good meaning, a good intention to stuff and fill them up; and on these we sleep securely, as Samson did in the lap of Dalilah, till our strength go from us, and we grow weak indeed; fit for nothing, but to grind in his prison, to do him service, who put out our eyes; able to die and perish, but not able to live; strong to do evil, but faint and feeble, and lost to that which is good.  

The second pretence.  For as we have sought for ease from the beginning of the world, so have we also from the beginning of the Gospel, as Saint Mark hath it; 
Mark. 1.1.  as we have brought in the first Adam infecting and poisoning us; so we would find some deficiency in the second, as if that Grace which he plenteously spreads in our hearts, had not virtue enough to expel and purge it out, as we pretend want of strength, so we pretend want of help and secure; the want of that Grace which we might have, which we have, but will not use; and have nothing more common in the world, even in their mouths, who know not what it is. What mention we the many? what talk we of those, who like those narrow mouthed vessels receive but little, because it is poured out too fast, and many times have as little feeling of what they receive, as those earthen vessels, to which we compared them. Grace, it is in every man's mouth, the sound of it hath gone through the earth, and they hear it, and Echo it back again to one another; they talk and discourse of it, and yet all are not saved by that Grace they talk of: Ebrius ad phialam, 
Augustin  mendicus ad januam; the drunkard speaks of it in his cups, and by the Grace of God he will drink no more, and yet drinks drunk till there be no appearance in him either of Grace or Nature, either of the Christian or the man; the Beggar he makes it his Topick, and hopes it will melt him he begs of, into compassion, which had not power to unfold his hands to work, that he may need no relief: it sounds in every ear, and every ear is delighted with it, and it is to them as the sound of a consecrated Bell is to the superstitious, and they conceive it hath power to drive the devil out of their coast, whilst they not fall, but run into those temptations, which they might have overcome by that Grace they talked of. What speak we of these? even they who have a great name for learning, and are of the first rank and file, have not brought it forth to the Sun, and people in that simplicity and nakedness, that upon the first sight they may say, This is it; Sometimes it is an infused habit; sometimes is is a motion or Operation; sometimes they know not how to distinguish it from faith and Charity; it is one and the same, and yet 'tis manifold: it excites, and stirs us up; it works in us, and it works with us; it prevents, and follows us, and thus they handle Grace as the Philosophers do the Soul, they tell us what wonders it works, but not its essence; they tell us what it doth, but not plainly what it is.  
But let us take it in its most plain and vulgar sense, for that special, and supernatural Assistance, which promotes, and upholdes us in that course, and those Actions, which carry us on to a supernatural end, but not shut out that Grace of God, by Christ Jesus by which we are justified, which in Scripture is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Grace and favour of God, and in most places is opposed to the works of the Law; nor those 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, those gifts and graces, as quickness of wit, depth of understanding and the like; not in his mercies, by which we are so often entreated, nor his promises, which do even woo, and allure us, nor any beams of the glory of that gospel, which are all agents and instruments in working us out a Crown, in bringing us to that end, for which we were made, and designed; and he that shall look back upon these, cannot conceive that God will shorten his hand, and be desicient, and wanting to us in that help and assistance, which is fit and necessary for us in this our race, that he will speak to us by his Son, speak to us by his Blood; speak to us by his mercies; speak to us from heaven, and then leave us as the Ostrich doth her young ones in the sand, open to injuries, and temptations, naked and without help to defend us against that violence, which may tread us to death? this certainly cannot consist with his Justice and his goodness, who having given us Christ, will with him give us all things; for how should it be otherwise? saith Saint Paul; who giveth to all men liberally, 
Rom. 8.32. Jam. 1.5.  and upbraideth not, saith Saint james; and to pretend a want of Grace, and assistance from God, what is it but to cast all our imperfections upon him, as well as upon Adam? as if we sinned, and were defective in our duty, not through our own negligence, and corrupt and perverse wills, but because God refused to give us strength to do it, gave us a Law, and lest us in fetters, bid us go, and meet him in our Obedience, when we were as lame as Mephibosbeth, and had no servant to help us; as if the heavens were as brass, and denied their Influence, and god did on purpose hid himself, and withdraw his grace, that we might fall from him and perish. And therefore Hilary passeth this heavy censure upon it, impiae est voluntatis, it is the sign of a wicked Heart, and one quite destitute of those graces and riches, which are the proper Inheritance of believing Christians, to pretend they therefore want them, because they were not given them of God.  
A dangerous error it is; and, we have reason to fear, hath sunk many a soul to that supine carelessness, to that deadness, from whence they could never rise again; for this is one of the wiles of our enemy, not only to make use of the flying and fading vanities of this world; but of the best Graces of God, to file and hath hammer them, and make them snares; and hath wrought temptations out of that, which should strengthen us against them: Faith is suborned to keep out Charity; the spirit of truth is named to lead us into error, and the power of God's Grace hath lost its authority and Energy in our unsavoury and fruitless Panegyrics: we hear the sound and name of it, we bless and applaud it, but the power of it is lost, not visible in any motion in any Action, in any progress we make in those ways in which along grace will assist us; floats on the Tongue, but never moves either heart, or hand. For do we not lie still in our graves, expecting till this Trump will sound? do we not cripple ourselves in hope of a miracle? 
Non est honae & solidae fidei omnia ad volumatem Dei refer, ut non intelligamus aliquid esse in Nobis ipsis. Tertul. Exhort. ad Castitatem.  do we not settle upon our lees, and say, God can draw us out? wallow in our blood, because he can wash us as white as snow? do we not love our sickness, because we have so skilful a Physician? and since God can do what he will, do what we please? This is a great evil under the Sun, and one principal cause of all that evil that is upon the earth; and makes us stand still, and look on, and delight in it, and leave it to God alone, and his power to remove it, as if it concerned us not at all, and it were too daring an attempt for us mortals, the sons of Adam, to purge and cleanse that Augaean stable, which we ourselves have filled with dung; as if God's wisdom and Justice did not move at all, and his mercy and power were alone busy in the work of our salvation; busy to save the adulterer; for though he be the member of an Harlot, yet when God will, he shall be made a member of Christ; to save the seditious: For though he now breathe nothing but Hailstones and coals of fire; yet a time will come, where he shall be made peaceable, whether he will or no; to save them who resolve to go on in their sin, for he can check them when he please, and bring them back to Obedience and holiness; in a word, to save them, whose Damnation sleepeth not. I may say with the Father, utinam mentirer, would to God in this I were a liar; but we have too much probability to induce us to believe it, as a truth; that they who are so ready to publish the free and irresistible power of God's Grace, and call it his Honour; dishonour him more by the Neglect of their duty, which is quite lost, and forgot in an unseasonable acknowledgement of what God can, and a lazy expectation of what he will work in them, and so make God Omnipotent, to do what his Wisdom forbids, and themselves weak and impotent to do, what by the same wisdom he commands: and then (when they commune with their heart, and find not there those long and pant after piety, that true desire and endeavour to mortify their earthly members, which God requires, when in this Dialogue, between one, and himself, their hearts cannot tell them they have watched one hour with Christ) flatter and comfort themselves, that this emptiness, and nakedness, shall never be imputed to them by God, who if he had pleased, might have wrought all in them in a moment, by that force, which flesh and blood could never withstand; And thus they sin, and pray, and pray and sin, and their impiety and devotion like the Sun and the Moon have their interchangeable courses, it is now night with them, and anon 'tis day; and then night again, and it is not easy to discern which is their day, or which is their night, for there is darkness over them both; They hear and commend virtue and piety, and since they cannot but think, that virtue is more than a breath, and that it is not enough to commend it, they pray, and are frequent in it, pray continually, but do nothing; pray, but do not watch, pray, but not strive against a temptation, but leave that to a mightier hand to do for them, and without them, whilst they pray and sin; call upon God for help, when they fight against him; as if it were Gods will to have it so; for if he would have had it otherwise, he would have heard their prayers, and wrought it in them; and therefore will be content with his Talon though hide in a napkin, which, if he had pleased, might have been made ten, and with his seed again, which if he had spoke the word, had brought forth fruit a hundred fold. Hence it comes to pass, that though they be very evil, yet they are very secure, this being the triumph over their Faith, not to conquer the world, but to leave that work for the Lord of Hosts Himself, and in all humility to stay till he do it; for they can do nothing of themselves, and they have done what they can, which is nothing, and now they are heartless, feeble, and (if I may so speak) this do-nothing devotion, which may be as hot on the tongue of a Pharisee, and tied to his Phylactery, must be made a sign of their election before all times, who in time do those things, of which we have been told often, that they that do them shall not inherit the kingdom of Heaven.  
I do not derogate from the power of God's grace (they that do, are not worthy to feel it, but shall feel that power, which shall crush them to pieces) they rather derogate from its power, who bring it in to raise that obedience, which coming with that tempest and violence, it must needs destroy, and take away quite; for what obedience is there, where nothing is done? where he that is under command doth nothing? vis ergo ista, non gratia, saith Arnobius, this were not grace, or royal favour, but a strange kind of emulation to gain the upper hand. We cannot magnify the Grace of God enough, which doth even expect, and wait upon us, 
John 1. ep. 2 c. 27. v.  woo, and serve us; it is that unction, that precious ointment Saint john speaks of, but we must not pour it forth upon the hairy scalp of wilful offenders, who loath the means, despise prophecy, quench the spirit, and so hinder it in its operation, of men, who are as stubborn against Grace, as they are loud in its commendations, as active to resist, as to extol it; For this is to cast it away and nullify it, this is to make it nothing by making it greater, nay, to turn it into wantonness.  
But it may be said, that when we are fallen from God we are not able to rise again of ourselves; we willingly grant it; that we have therefore need of new strength, and new power to be given us, which may raise us up, we deny it not; and then Thirdly, that not only the power, but the very act of our recovery is from God, ingratitude itself cannot deny it; and then, that man can no more withstand the power of that grace, which God is ready to supply us with, than an infant can his birth, or the dead their Resurrection; that we are turned whether we will or no, is a conclusion, which these premises will not yield. This flint will yield no such fire, though you strike never so oft; we are, indeed, sometimes said to sleep, and sometimes to be Dead in sin; but it is ill building conclusions upon no better Basis than a figure, or because we are said to be dead in sin, infer a necessity of rising when we are called; nor is our obedience to God's inward call of the same nature, with the obedience of the Creature to the voice and command of the Creator (for the Creature hath neither reason nor will as man hath) nor doth his power work after the same manner in the one as in the other. How many Fiats of God have been frustrate in this kind? how often he hath he smote our stony, and rocky hearts, and no water flowed out? how often hath he said Fiat lux let there be light, when we remained in darkness? for we are free agents, and he made us so, when he made us men, and our actions when his power is mighty in us, are not necessary but voluntary; not doth his power work according to the working of our Fancy, nor lies within the level of our carnal Imaginations, to do what they appoint, but is accompanied, and directed by that wisdom, which he is, and he doth nothing, can do nothing, but what is agreeable to it. As it was said of Caesar in Lucan, though in another sense, 
Velle putant, quodcunque potest.   
We think that God can do whatsoever he can; but we must know, that as he is powerful, and can do all things, so he is wise, and sweetly disposeth all things, as he will, and he will not save us against our will, for to necessitate us to goodness, were not to try our obedience, but to force it, & quod necessitas praestat, depretiat ipsa. Necessity takes of the price and value of that it works, and makes it of no worth at all; And then God doth not voluntarily take his grace from any, but if the power of it defend us not from sin and death, it is because we abuse and neglect it, and will not work with it, which is ready to work with us; For Grace is not blind, as Fortune, nec cultores praeterit, nec haeret contemptoribus, she will neither pass by them, who will receive her, nor dwell with those persons which contemn her, nor save those who will destroy themselves.  
To conclude this; He is most unworthy to receive Grace, who in the least degree detracts from the power of it; and he is as unworthy who magnifies, and rejects it, and makes his lise an argument against his Doctrine, says he cannot be resisted, and resists it every day; he that denies the power of it, is a scarce a Christian, and he is the worst of Christians who will not gird up his loins, and work out his salvation, but loiters and stands idle all the day long, shadows and pleaseth himself under the expectation of what he will do, and so Turns it into wantonness. Let us not abuse the Grace of God, and then we cannot magnify it enough; but he that will not set his hand to work, upon a fancy, that he wants Grace; he that will not hearken after Grace though she knock and knock again, (as Fortune was said to have done at Galbas' gate) till she be weary, hath already despised the Grace of God, and cannot plead the want of that for any excuse, which he might have had, but put it off, nay, which he had, but so used it, as if it had been no grace at all. They that have grace offered and repel it, they that have Antidotes against death and will not use them, can never answer the expostlation, Why will ye die?  

The third pretence.  And certainly, he that is so liberal of his grace, hath given us knowledge enough to see the danger of those ways which lead to death; and therefore in the next place, ignorance of our ways doth not minuere voluntarium, doth not make our sin less wilful, but rather aggrandise it; For first, we may know, if we will know every duty that tends to life, and every sin that bringeth forth death; we may know the Devils enterprises saith saint Paul, 
2 Cor. 2.11.  and the ignorance of this finds no excuse, when we have power and faculty, light and understanding; when the Gospel shines brightly upon us, to dispel those mists, which may be placed between the truth and us, 
Sub silentiae fa●ultate nes●ire, repudiatae magis quàm non come pertae veritatis est reatus Hil. in Psal. 1.8.  then if we walk in darkness, and in the shadow of death, we shall be found guilty, and not so much of not finding out the truth, as of refusing it, as Hilary speaks of a strange contempt in not attaining that, which is so easily achieved, and which is so necessary for our preservation. I know every man hath not the same quickness of apprehension, nor can every man make a Divine, and it were to be wished, every man would know it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, it is not for him that thresheth out the corn, to resolve controversies, or State-questions, but Saint Peter requires that every man should be able to give an answer, 
1 Pet. 3.15.  a reason of his faith, and if he can do that, he that knows the will of God is well armed and prepared against death, and may cope with him, and destroy him if he will. And this is no perplexed, nor intricate study, but fitted and proportioned to the meanest capacity: he that cannot be a Seraphical Divine, may be a Christian; he that cannot be a Rabbi, may be an honest man; and if men were as diligent in the pursuit of the truth, as they are in managing their own temporal affairs; if men would try as many conclusions for knowledge, as they do for wealth, and were as ambitious to be good, as they are to be rich and great; if they were as much afraid of God's wrath, as they are of poverty, and the frown of a mortal, this pretence of want of knowledge would be soon removed, and quite taken out of the way. For now the Grace of God hath appeared unto all men, and commanded all men every where to repent, and turn from their evil ways. What Apology can the oppressor have, when wisdom itself hath sounded in his ears, and told him, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself? for even flesh and blood would soon conclude, that no man will oppress himself. What can the Revenger plead after that thunder, vengeance is mine? what can the covetous pretend when he hears, Go sell all and give to the poor? what can the seditious say, when he is plainly told; he that resists shall receive damnation? can any man miss his way, where there is much light to direct him? when he brought a great part of his Lesson along with him into the world, which he may run and read, and understand: How can he there err dangerously, where the Truth is fastened to a pillar? where there is such a Mercury to show him his way?  
And therefore in the second place; if we be ignorant, it is because we will be ignorant, and if we could open a window into the breasts of men, we should soon perceive a hot contention between their knowledge and their lusts, struggling together like the twins in Rebeccahs' womb, till at last their lust supplants their knowledge and gains the pre-eminence, nolunt intellgere, ne cogantur & facere, saith Austin, they will not understand their duty, lest that may draw upon them an obligation to do it, nor will see their error, because they have no mind to forsake it; for their knowledge points towards life, but not to be attained to, but by sweat and blood, which their lust loathes, and trembles at; and therefore this knowledge is too wonderful for them, nay, 'tis as the gall of bitterness unto them; and as Nero's mother would not suffer him to study Philosophy, quia impetaruro contraria, 
Suet. Nero. c. 25.  because it prescribes many moral virtues as Sincerity, Modesty, and Frugality, which sort not well with the crown, and must needs fall cross with those actions, in which Policy and Necessity many times engage the Monarches of the Earth; so do these look upon the truth, as a thing contrary to them, as checking their pride, bridling their malice, bounding their ambition, chiding their injustice, threatening their Tyranny, and so study to unlearn, suppress, and silence it, and will not hear it speak to them any more, but set up a lie, first the child, than the Parasite of their lusts, and enthrone it in its place to reign over them, and guide them in all their ways. I remember Bernard in one of his Sermons upon the Canticles, tells us, that he observed many cast down and very sad and dejected upon the knowledge of the truth, not so much for this, that it did show them the danger they were in, and withal an open and effectual door to escape, but that it choked the passages, and stopped up the way to their old Asylum and Sanctuary of ignorance. For truth is not only a light, but a fire to scorch and burn us, not only a direction, but a Satire, and teacheth us to deny ungodly lusts, and if we obey not, it censures and condemns us. This ignorance than cannot excuse our sin, or make our death less voluntary, because our lust hath taken the place of knowledge, and dictates for it, and we grope at noonday, and will not see those sins, which though they be works of darkness, yet are as visible as the light itself. Rebellion is not therefore no sin, because it comes gravely towards us in the habit of zeal and religion. Profaneness is not excusable, because Fanatic persons count Reverence, Superstition. Deceit is not warrantable, because I hold it as a positive truth; that the wicked have title to the things of this world, and my Fantastic lusts have drawn out another conclusion, where there was no medium, no premises to be found, that I am a righteous person, & then follows a conclusion as wild as that, that I may rob, and spoil him. But these are but bella Tectoriola, but artificial Daub, and the weakest eye may see through them, and discover a monster; and as Tully in one of his Books de Finibus tells us, that those Philosophers who would not plainly say, that pleasure was their summum bonum, or chiefest Happiness, but vacuity of sorrow and trouble, did vicinitate versari, bordered and came near to that, which they first called it; so the world hath found out divers names to colour and commend their foulest sins, but bring them to the trial, and they must needs mean one and the same thing, and that zeal and Rebellion Devotion and Prophainess, taking from the wicked, and downright Cozenage are at no greater distance, than these two, a Fiend and a Devil, but that the Devil is then worst, when he takes the name of an Angel of light. The truth is plain enough, but the Prince of this world hath so blinded them, that they will not see it; For their lusts which laid their Conscience asleep, hath taken the chair, and prescribes for it, and drives them on to do that which was never done nor seen. Judg. 19.30. to tread all Laws of God and man under feet, and make their strength the Law of unrighteousness; I know not whether we may call this ignorance or no; It is too good a name for it, and nothing but our Charity can make it so, or grace it so much, if it be ignorance, it is a proud, puffing, majestic, insolent ignorance; the Jewish Rabbis might well say, Error Doctrinae reputatur pro superbiâ, 
Maimonid: more Henoch. p. 3. 41.  this ignorance is nothing but pride or the issue of it, even of that pride, which threw Lucifer down from Heaven, and raiseth men here upon earth to fling them down after him.  
But in the last place, to conclude this: if this ignorance be not affected, or rather forced, and made a pillow to sleep on, yet if it proceed only from that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that non-attention, that supine negligence to keep it out, yet in matters which concern life and death, we are as much bound to know the means how, as to strive to attain the one, and escape the other; for what I ought to do, I ought to know. 
Pet Aerod. de Reb. Judicat: de Fide & Relig. c. 5. Idem.  The Jews have a saying, Delinquit propheta, qui à prophetâ decipitur, 'tis a great fault in a Prophet to be deceived, though by another Prophet: The Civilians, imperitia medicorum dolo comparatur, Ignorance in a Physician is a kind of cheat, and a bloody cheat; 
Plin. N. Hist.  for the ignorant Physician negotiatur animas hominum, saith old Cato in Pliny, doth Trade, and deceive men out of their lives, when they most trust in them. For if the man be Ignorant, if he will administer Physic, he will kill; if the man be ignorant, if he will Preach, he will also Prophesy lies: If he be a Magistrate, if he will Govern, he will also shake the pillars of the Commonwealth. If he be a Christian, if he be ignorant; then as he will profess; so also will he run into the snares of the Devil: and this his ignorance is no plea against that Law, which he was bound to know, 
Sen. Contr. l. 5. c. 5.  as well as to keep it. Ex toto noluisse debet, qui Imprudentiâ defenditur, he that will plead Ignorance or error for an excuse, must have his whole will strongly set up against it, and then the great difficulty or impossibility of avoiding it may be his Advocate and speak for him: but if he make room for it, when he might exclude it, if he Embrace that which may let it in, or make no use of the light that detects it; if he will, or reject not, or be indifferent, if he distaste the truth for some cross aspect it hath on his designs, and love a lie, because it smiles upon them, and promotes them, than this ignorance is a sin, and the last the greatest, and therefore cannot make up an excuse for another sin, for those sins which it brings in, in Triumph; but is so much the more Malignant, in that we had light, but did turn our face away and would not see it, or did hate and despise it, and blow it out: For he that will not know the ways of life or calls his evil ways by that name, may well be asked the question, why he will die?  
Ignorance then is not always an excuse; for some are negligent, and indifferent, will not take the pains to lift themselves up to the truth by those steps and degrees, which are set for them, and are the way unto it, and so walk as in the night which themselves have made, because they would not look upon the Sun. Others study and affect it, and when the truth will not go along with them to the end of their designs, persuade themselves into those errors which are more proportioned to it, and will friendly wait upon them, and be serviceable to fill and answer that expectation, which their lust had raised, and call them by that name. They will not know, what they cannot but know, nor see death, though he stand before them in their way, and so are lead on with pomp and state, with these false persuasions, with these miserable Comforters to their grave.  

The fourth pretence.  But in the next place: when we find some check of Conscience, some regret, some gainsayings in our mind, that we are unwilling to go on in these evil ways, and yet take courage and proceed, we are ready to please ourselves with this thought, and are soon of the Opinion, that what we are doing, or have done already, if it be evil, yet is done against our will; and if destruction overtake us, it seizes on them, that did so much hate and abhor it, that we shook and trembled, when it did but show itself to us in a thought. And this I take to be an error as full of danger, as it is void of reason, of no use at all, but to make us favour ourselves, and engage and adventure further in those ways which lead unto death.  
I deny not, but as there is great difference in sins, so there may be a difference also in committing them; that the righteous person doth not drink down sin with that delight and greediness which the wicked do, that they do not sport themselves in the ways of death, nor fall into them with that easiness, with that precipitancy, that they do not count it as a purchase to satisfy their lusts, and that most times the event is different; for the one falleth down at the feet of God for mercy; the other hardens his heart, and face, and will not bow: but yet, I cannot number it amongst the marks and characters of a righteous man, or (as some love to speak, and may so speak, if they well understood what they said) of one of the elect, when he falls into any mortal grievous sin, as Adultery, Murder, and the like, that he doth not fall plenâ voluntate, with a full consent, and will but more faintly, and remissly, as it were with more Gravity, than other men; that he did actually fall, but was not willing to fall, that is, that he did will indeed the sin which he did commit, but yet did commit it against his will. Nor can I think our consent is not full, when we chide and rebuke the tentation, and yet suffer it to win ground, and gain more and more Advantage against us, when we have some grudge, some petty murmurs in ourselves; and in our heart defame those sins, which we show openly in our Actions: for when we have done that which is evil, we cannot say, we would not have done it; when we have made room for sin to enter, we cannot say, that we would have excluded it.  
For, 1. I cannot see how these two should meet so friendly, a double Will, nay, a contrary will in respect of one, and the same Act, especially when sin is not in fieri but in facto esse, when the temptation hath prevailed, and the will determined its act. Indeed, whilst the Act was suspended, and our mind wavering, and in doubt where to fasten, or which part to embrace, whether to take the wedge of Gold, or to withdraw; whether to smite my brother, or to sheathe up my sword, and anger together; whether to taste, or not to taste the forbidden Fruit; when it was in labour as it were, and did strive and struggle between these two; the delightfulness, and unlawfulness of the Object, between the temptation, and the Law, whilst the flesh lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh, there may be such an indifferency, a kind of willing, and nilling, a proffer, and distaste, an approach and a pause, an inclination to the object, anda fear to come near: But when the sense hath prevailed with the will to determine for it against the reason, when lust hath conceived, and brought forth, then there is no room for this indifferency, because the will hath determined its act, and concluded for the sense against the reason, for the Flesh against the spirit. For we must not mistake the fluctuations and pawses, and contentions of the mind, and look upon them, as the Acts of the will, which hath but one simple, and indivisible act, which it cannot divide between two contraries, so as to look steadfastly on the one, and yet reflect also with a look of liking upon the other, our Saviour hath fitted us with an instance, you cannot serve God and Mammon: if we know then what the will is, we shall know also, that it is impossible to divide it, and shall be ashamed of that Apology, to say, we sin semiplenâ voluntate, with an imperfect, with an half will, we know not how. There may be indeed a kind of velleity and inclination to that which is good, when the will hath embraced that which is evil; there may be a probo meliora, a liking of the better, when I have chosen the worse part; which is not a willing, but an approbation, an allowing, that which is just, which ariseth from that light of our mind and Law of our understanding from that natural Judgement, by which we discern that which is evil, from that which is good, and is an Act of our reason, and not of our will; and thus I may will a thing, and yet dislike it, I may embrace, and condemn it, I may commend Chastity, and be a wanton, Hospitality and be a Nabal, Clemency and be a Nero, Christianity, and be worse than a Jew; I may subscribe to the Law, that it is just, and break it; I may take the cup of Fornication, and drink deep of it for some pleasant taste it hath, when I know it will be my poison.  
And therefore: in the second place; this renitency, and resistancie of Conscience is so far from Apologizing for us, as for such as sin not with a full consent, that most times it doth add weight to it, and much aggravate our sin, and doth plainly demonstrate a most violent, and eager consent of the will, which would not be restrained, but passed as it were this Rampire, and Bulwark, which was raised against it, to the forbidden object; which neither the Law, nor the voice, and check of Conscience (which to us in the place of God) could stop or restrain, and that we play the wantoness and dally with sin, as the wanton doth with his strumpet, that we do opponere ostium, non claudere, put the door gently to, 
Senec. N Q. l. 4.2.  but not shut and lock it out, which is welcome to us when it knocks, but more welcome when it breaks in upon us; and so frown and admit, chide & embrace, bid it farewell, when we are ready, and long to join with it, make a show of running from it, when we open ourselves to receive and lodge it in our heart. For again, if the pravity and obliquity of an act is to be measured, and judged by the vehement and earnest consent of the will, than the sin which is committed with so much reluctancy, will prove yet more sinful, and of a higher nature, than those we fall into, when we heard no voice behind us to call us back; For here the will of the sinner is stubborn, and perverse, and makes haste to the forbidden object against all opposition whatsoever, against the voice of the Law, which is now loud against him, against the motions of the spirit, which he strives to repel, against the clamours of Conscience, which he hears and will not hear, even against all the Artillery of Heaven: it doth not yield to the tentation, when no voice is heard: but of the tempter, nothing discovered, but the beauty and allurement of the object, nor upon strategeme, or surprisals, but it yields against the thunder of the Law, and dictate of Conscience; admits sin, not in its Beauty and glory, when it is dressed up with advantage, and comes toward us smiling to flatter and woo us, but it joins with it, when it is clothed with death, when it is revealed by conscience, and hung round about with all the curses of the Law; Swallows down sin, not when it is as sweet as honey, but when it hath a mixture and full taste of the bitterness of Gall, and so though our sin be against our conscience, yet it is not against our will, and therefore is the more voluntary.  
Besides in the last place; this is a thing, which almost befalls every man, that is not delivered over to a reprobate sense, whose eye of reason is not quite put out, who is not unmanned, and hath any feeling or sense of that which is evil, and that which is good; nay, it was in Cain, it was in Judas, it is in every despairing sinner or else he could not despair. These pauses, and deliberations, these doubtings and disputes, and divided thoughts are common to the righteous, and to wicked persons.  
— Duplici in diversum scindimur Hamo  
Hunccine, an hunc sequemur?—  
Most men are more or less thus divided in themselves, and as Plautus observes, it is the humour of some men, when they are at a feast, to dislike the dishes, but no whit the more abstain, Culpant, sed comedunt tamen, they find fault with their meat, and did eat it up: so it is with us, we too oft disrelish sin and swallow it down; we cannot but condemn sin, and we are as ready to commit it, and with him in the Comedy Ask, Quid igitur Faciam? When shall we now do? when we are knocking at the harlot's door, and are ready to break forth into Action. And therefore this Conceit that a regenerate man doth not sin with a full consent, in that his conscience calls after him to retire in the very adventure, is very dangerous, and may be mortal to the heart, that fosters it; for when this conceit hath filled and pleased us, we shall be ready with Pilate to wash our hands, when they are full of blood, and cry out we are Innocent, when we have released Barrabas, let lose our Sense, Appetite, and Affections to run riot, and delivered Jesus the just one to be scourged and crucified; delivered up our reason to be a slave; and ministerial to all those evils which the flesh or devil can suggest, and delivered up our affections to be torn and scattered as so many straws upon a wrought sea, and never at rest, in a word contemnere peccata, quià minora putamus, to slight and pass by our sins in silence, because we will not behold them in their just shape, and proportion, in that horror that Terror, and deformity which might fright us from it. And this conceit is a greater Tentation then that which hath first taken us, for it brings on, and ushers in the Tentation, Takes from it all its displacency, that it may enter with ease, and when it hath prevailed, shuts out Repentance, which should make way for that mercy and forgiveness, which alone must make our Peace. Every man favours himself, and is very open to entertain any Doctrine which may cherish and uphold this humour, and make him less wicked, or more righteous, than he is; and though at first we find no reason, which commends it to us, and craves admittance for it, yet because it speaks so friendly to our Infirmities, and helps to raise up that, which we desire to see in its height, we take it upon Trust, and believe it to be true indeed; and stand up, and contend for it, as a part of that Faith, which was once delivered to the Saints, and having this mark of the Righteous, That we sin, but check ourselves in it, we take ourselves to be so, righteous persons, though we be so ill qualified, that an Impartial eye beholds it, and finds so much probability, as points to it, as to the mark of the Beast. It is with many of us, as it was with the slave in Tacitus, 
Annal. 2.  who being like Agrippa in outward favour, and the linaments of his body, did also take upon him to counterfeit his Person, and being asked by Caesar, How he came to be Agrippa, stoutly answered, As thou camest to be Caesar: Nemo non benignus sui Judex, there are but few, or none at all, that are not too favourable Judges in their own cause, and though they be slaves, and servants unto sin, yet will be ready to put on the person of a Prince, of a Saint, of a chosen vessel, and by the help of Imagination, and the frequency of those pleasing, and deceitful thoughts at last verily believe himself to be so; And if reluctancy and regret, and the turning away of the Face of the soul, the Conscience, at the evil we do, be a mark of a Regenerate man, then certainly a very Pagan, a Notorious sinner may find this mark about him, and though he commit sin with greediness, yet lay him down, and rest, and sleep upon this conclusion; That hating sin as he doth, and committing that sin, which he thinks he hates, his name may be written in Heaven, and that he is also one of the Elect.  
But then, to conclude this, A strange thing it may seem, That we should first wound our Conscience, and then force her to pour in this Balm, first, not hear her speak, and then bring her in to make this plea; That we did not Hear her; first to slight and offend her, and then make her our Advocate; I spoke unto you, and you heard not; it is your happiness; Had I not spoken, your sin had been greater than it is, and thus we do it with less danger (That's our thought) because we first told ourselves, That we should not do it. But call our sin what we please, a sin of Infirmity, or a sin with a halfe-will, with a Half Consent, with a will, and no will, non mutatur vocabulis vis rerum, 
Quintil l. 9 Inst. c. 1.  words, and names have no power to change and alter the nature of our sin, or to abate any degree of its poison and malignity, and pretend what we will, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the sentence and Judgement is the Lords, and in his sight, even those sins which we do with reluctancy, and some contention with ourselves, and voluntary, and without Repentance bind us over to Death Even of them who sin, though they check and condemn themselves before the Act, say they would not, and yet do it, this Question may be asked, Why will ye die?  

The fift and last Common pretence.  We come now to the last pretence, which is commonly taken up by men, who are willing to be evil, but not willing to go under that name; and we shall but touch it; for it will soon fall to pieces with a Touch. And this pretence is made up of a bad will, and a good Intention, or meaning; which is indeed of a Good will and a bad; the one being levelled on the end, the other on the means that lead unto it, and the one is set up to commend and Authorise the other; for, as some think, if the end be fair, it casts a beauty and lustre upon the way that leads to it; though it be as foul as sin can make it; and then, when our Will is evil, it is not evil, because it looks further than that evil, to something that is so good, that by its virtue it will transform, and change the nature of it, and make it like unto itself. And, if we look into the world, we shall find that nothing hath deceived men more, nothing hath wrought more mischief on the Earth, than a groundless thought, that that must needs please God, which is done to a good end, with a good mind, and an Ardent Affection and zeal, That of the two Tables, we may break the one, to secure and preserve the other, that we may serve God, when we break his will, and honour him, when we deface his Image; that that sin, which may Damn a soul (and the least may do that) is not considerable, if we carry it along but in our hopes, to that End, which we have set out with the fair title of Good, though it may sometimes be a greater sin, then that which we would make use of, to raise it up. But we must suppose it good; but yet we cannot think it can have such a strange, and more than Omnipotent virtue to change every thing, even that, which is most contrary to it, into its self, or to make Things not to be what they are, or at the same time to be both good and Evil. This is but a Sophism, but a cheat put upon us by the Devil; for there be two things to make up a good Intention, or else it is not good; First it must be levelled to a right and warrantable end, and then carried to it in a due and orderly course, by those means which are fitted and proportioned to that end; and sure sin is so unlike to that which is good, that it were easier to dissolve the Earth, and then set it upon its pillars again, then to draw them to such a subordination, as to serve to advance one another; what a strange sight would it be, to see such a fig grow on such a Thistle, to see one evil Spirit drive out another, which commonly brings in seven worse than himself; to see Religion brought into the World upon the Devil's shoulders? Besides, every thing that is good, whether it be a natural Good, or a Civil good, or a Divine good, hath its proper and peculiar means ordained and fitted to it, either to procure or preserve it; If I desire Health, Temperance and a good diet are the means; If I would have food and raymeant? Industry is the means; If I would keep my friend; Fidelity is the means; If I would have a well-ordered Family; Discipline is the means; if I would establish a Commonwealth; 
Prov. 20.28.  Justice is the means; That, That alone will uphold it, saith Solomon, who was the wisest of Kings, and knew the fittest means for that end; but who ever heard of any use that sin was ever of? what end can that be proportioned to? if there be any, 'tis not worth the nameing; the end of it is Damnation. Run to and fro the Earth, look about in every corner of the universe, search all the Records from Adam to this moment, you shall never find any other: For our Health, it destroys it, strikes us in the very Gates of life, Cuts us off in the midst of our days, and Tumbles our Grey Hairs with sorrow into the Grave; For this many are weak and sick amongst us, 
1 Cor. 2.10.  and many are asleep. For our food, it makes it gravel in our mouths, and strips us of our raiment, and drives us amongst Swine. For Friendship: It may tie a knot, but it will fly in pieces of itself; for the friendship of evil men is as false and deceitful as themselves. For our Families: It raises a Tempest even in these Basins, 
Fluctus in Simpulo. Proverb. Tull. 3. de leg.  these little bodies, these petty resemblances of a Republic. It sets Father against Son, and son against Father, makes a servant a Traitor, and raises enemies within doors, and draws out a Battalio in a Cottage. For Commonwealths: the least sin may sooner overthrow them, than the greatest set them up, and of all their Glories, they cannot show any one of them, that was brought in by either: It may raise them for a time perhaps, to some height, butthen it gets up above them, lies heavy upon them, and presseth them down, breaks them to pieces, and Buries them in their Rubbish; this it doth, and shall that which can do nothing, but work desolation, be a fit prop for Religion to lean on, when she seems to sink, or to bring her back, when the voice is, that she is gone out of our Coasts? Can evil be fit for any Thing, but that which is like it?  
But we are told Tale critopus tuum, qualis Intentio; 
Bernard. de modo bene vivendi. c. 15.  that our work doth follow the Nature, and quality of our Intention; True, if the Intention be Evil; If I build a Church to set up Idols; If I build a college to perpetuate my name; If I be very holy on the sudden, and pay my vow to usury, a Crown; if I do a good act in itself, for some evil end, for then the intention altars, and changes the Nature of it, and makes it like unto itself; and the reason is plain, because any one bad Circumstance is enough to make an Action evil, but bonum ex causâ intergrâ the concurrence of all is required to denominate it good, 
Greg. Past. Cur Part. c. 4.  multa non illcitavitiat animus, the mind and intention doth bring in a guilt upon those Actions which are otherwise lawful, but cannot make that just, which is forbidden; cannot answer for the breach of a Law: Briefly a good intention and a good action may be joined together, and be one, nor can they be good but in this conjunction; but to join a good intention to a bad action is with Mezentius in the Poet, to tie a living Body to a Carcase, it may colour indeed, and hid a bad Action, but it cannot consecrate it; it may disguise a man of Belial, but it cannot make him a Saint; it may be as a Ticket, or a pass to carry a wicked man to the end which he sets up, and there leave him more secure, (it may be) but without doubt, more wicked than before: For Murder now hath no voice; Faction is Devotion, Sacrilege is zeal, all is well, because we mean well; we fix up a good intention in our fancy, and that is our polestar, and having that in our eye, we may steer our course, as we please, and bulge, but swell our sails, and bear forward boldly, till at last we are carried upon that rock, which sinks us for ever; and therefore to conclude this; a good intention cannot pull out the sting from death, nor the guilt from sin, but if we sin, though it be with an honest mind, we sin voluntarily; in brief, though we know it not to be a sin; though from the Tribunal of conscience we check ourselves before we commit it; though we do evil but intent good, though we see it not, though we approve it not, though we intent it not as evil, yet evil it is, and a voluntary evil, and without repentance hath no better wages than death, and this expostulation may be put up to us Quare moriemini? Why will ye die? for we cannot say, but they are willing to die, who make such haste to the pit of ruin, and in their swift and eager pursuit of death, do but cast back a faint look toward the land of the living.  
We must now draw towards a conclusion, and we must conclude and shut up all, even death itself in the will of man, we cannot lay it upon any natural weakness; nor upon the want of grace and Assistance: we cannot plead ignorance; nor the distaste, and reluctancy of our mind, nor can a good intention name that will good, which is fixed on evil, nor the means which we use commend and secure that end, which is the work of sin, and hath death waiting upon it: if we die we can find no other answer to this question, Why will ye die? but that which is not worth the putting up; 'tis quiavolumus, because we will die. Take all the weakness, or corruption of our nature; look upon that inexhaustible sountain of Grace, but as we think, dried up: take the darkness of our understanding, the cloud is from the will; Nolumus intelligere: we will not understand; take all those sad symptoms, and prognostics of death, a wand'ring unruly fancy; 'tis the will whiffs it about, turbulent passions; the tempest is from the will, etiam quod invitus facere videor, si facio, voluntate facio, even that which I do with some reluctancy, if I do it, I do it willingly: all provocations, and incitements imaginable being supposed: no love, no fear, no anger; not the devil himself can determine the will, or force us into action, and if we die, it is quia volumus because we will die; If death be the conclusion, that which infers it, is the will of man, which brought sin and death into the world.  
And this may seem strange, that any should be willing to die. Ask the profanest person living, that hath sold himself to wickedness; and so is even bound over to death, and he will tell you, he is willing to be saved; heaven is his wish, and eternal happiness his desire; as for death, the Remembrance of it is bitter unto him: death? if you do but name it, he trembles; The Glutton is greedy after meat, but loathes a disease; the wanton seeks out pleasures, but not those evils they carry with them under their wing; the Revenger would wash his feet in the blood of his enemy, but not be drowned in't; the Thief would steal, but would not grind in the prison; but the Philosopher will tell us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, 
Aristot. Ath. 2.1  the beginning of all these is in the will; and he that will be intemperate, will surfeit; he that will be wanton will be weak; he that taketh the sword will perish by the sword; he that will spoil, will be spoiled, and he that will sin will die, 
Clem. Alex. strom. 2.  every man's death is a voluntary act, not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 out of any natural appetite to perish, but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by his own choice, who did choose it, though not in se, not in itself, which is so terrible, but in causis, as the Schools speak, in its causes, in those sins in which it is bound up, and from which it cannot be fevered, for sin carries it in its womb, and if we sin we are condemned, and dead already; we may see it smile upon us in some alluring pleasure, we may see it glitter in a piece of Gold, or woo us in the rays of Beauty, but every smile, every resplendency, every ray is a dart, and strikes us through. Why will ye die? why? the holy Ghost is high, and full in the expressing it; Amamus mortem; we love death; Prov. 8. and the last. v. and love, saith the Father, is vehemens voluntas, a vehement, and an Active will; it is said to have wings, and to fly to its object, but it needs them not, for it is ever with it; the covetous is kneaded in with the world; they are but one lump: It is his God, one in him, and he in it. The wanton calls his strumpet his soul; and when she departeth from him, he is dead; the ambitious feeds on honour, as 'tis said Chameleons do on air; a disgrace kill him; amamus mortem, we love death, which implies a kind of union, and connaturality and complacency in death. Again, exultamus rebus pessimis Prov. 2.14. we rejoice and delight in evil; Ecstasim patimur, so some render it, we are transported beyond ourselves, we talk of it, we dream of it, we sweat for it, we fight for it, we travel for it, we triumph in it, we have a kind of trance, and transformation, we have a Jubilee in sin, and we are carried delicately, and with triumph to our death; Nay, further yet, 
1 Kings 22.4.  we are said to make a covenant with Death, Isai. 29.15. we join with it, and help it, to destroy ourselves; as jehoshaphat said to Ahab, I am as thou art, and my people; as thy people, we have the same friends, and the same enemies, we love that, that upholds its dominion, and we fight against that, that would destroy it, we strengthen and harden ourselves against the light of Nature, and the light of grace, against Gods, whispers, and against his loud calls, against his exhortations, and obtestations, and expostulations, which are strength enough to discern death, and pull him from his pale horse; and all these will make it a volumus at least, not a velleity as to good; but an absolute vehement will: after we have weighed the circumstances, pondered the danger, considered and consulted, we give sentence on death's side, and though we are unwilling to think so, yet we are willing to die; to love death, to rejoice in death, to make a Covenant with death will make the volumus full; to the question, why will ye die? no other answer can be given, but, we will; For if we should ask further; yea, but why will ye? here we are at a stand, horror and amazement, and confusion shuts up our mouth in silence, as in the 22 of Matth. when the Guest was questioned, quomodo huc? how he came thither? the Text says 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, capistratus est, he was muzzled, he was silent, he could not speak a word.  
For conclusion then: Let us as the Wiseman counsels, keep our heart, 
Prov. 4.23.  our will, with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life, and out of it are the issues of death; let us take it from death, and confine and bind it to its proper object, bind it with those bonds which were made to bind Kings and Nobles, the most stout and stubborn, and imperious heart, bind it with the fear of death, with the fear of that God which here doth ask the question, and not seek to ease ourselves, by an indiscreet and ill applied consideration of our natural weakness; For how many make themselves wicked, because they were made weak? how many never make any assay to go, upon this thought, that they were born lame? Original weakness is an Article of our Creed, and it is our Apology, but 'tis the Apology of the worst; of the covetous, of the ambitious, of the wanton, when 'tis the lust of the eyes, that buries the covetous in the earth, the lusts of the flesh, that sets the wanton on fire, the pride of life, that makes the Ambitious climb so high, prima haec elementa, these are the first Elements; these are their Alphabet; they learn from their Parents, they learn from their friends, they learn from servants to raise a bank, to ennoble their name, to delight themselves in the things of this world; these they are taught, and they have their method drawn to their hands; by these evil words, which are the proper Language and Dialect of the world, their manners are corrupted, and for this our father Adam is brought to the bar, when 'tis Mammon, Venus, and the world that have bruised us more, than his fall could do.  
And secondly, pretend not the want of Grace; for a Christian cannot commit a greater solecism, then to pretend the want of that, which hath been so often offered, which he might have had if he would; or to conceive, that God should be unwilling he should do his will, unwilling he should repent and turn unto him. This is a charge, as well as a pretence, even a charge against God, for bidding us rise up and walk when we were lame, and not affording us a staff, or working a miracle. Grace is of that nature, that we may want it, though it be not denied, we may want it, when we have it; and indeed we want Grace as the covetous man wants money, we want it because we will not use it, and so we are starved to death with bread in our hands; for if we will not eat our daily bread, we must die.  
And in the next place, let us not shut up ourselves in our own darkness, nor plead ignorance of that, which we were bound to know; which we do know, and will not: which is written with the Sunbeams, which we cannot say we see not, when we may run and read it. For what mountainous evils do men run upon? what gross, what visible, what palpable sins do they foster, quae se suâ corpulentiâ produnt, sins which betray themselves to be so, by their bulk and corpulency? Sacrilege is no sin; and I cannot see how it now should, for there is scarce any thing left for its gripe. Lying is no sin; it is our Language, and we speak as many lies almost as words, perjury is no sin, for how many be there, that reverence an oath? jura perjura; it is an Axiom in our morality, 
jusjurandum rei servandae, non perdendae conditum est. Plaut. Rud. Act 5 sc. 3. mantile, quo quotidianae noxae extergentur: Laber.  and policy, and secures our estates, and intailes them on our posterity. Deceit is no sin, for it is our trade; nay, Adultery is no sin, you would think with the Heathen, with those who never heard of the name of Christ, nay, but with those who call upon it every day, and call themselves the knowing men, the Gnostics of this age; and whilst men love darkness more than light, with some men, there will scarce be any sins upon that account as sins, till the day of Judgement.  
Next, bring not in thy conscience to plead for that sin which did 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, beat and wound thy conscience; for the offie of thy conscience is before the fact, to inform thee, and after the fact, if it be evil to accuse thee, and what comfort can there be in this thought that thou didst not sollow her information, that she called it a sin, and thou didst it? that she pointed out to it as to a rock, and thou wouldst needs choose it for thy Heaven? no, commonly this is the plea of those whose hearts are hard, and yet will tell you, they have a tender conscience; and so they have: Tender in respect of a ceremony or thing indifferent; here they are struck in a manner dead, quite besides themselves, as if it were a Basilisk; here they are true and constant to their conscience, which may err, but not tender in respect of an eternal Law, where it cannot mistake, here they too often leave their conscience, and then excuse themselves, that they did so: in the one, they are as bold as a Lion, in the other, they call it the frailty of a Saint; this they do with regret, and some reluctancy, that is by interpretation, against their will.  
Last of all; do not think thy action is not evil, because thy intention was good; for it is as easy to fix a good intention upon an evil action, as 'tis to set a fair and promising title on a box of poison; hay and stubble may be laid upon a good foundation, but it will neither head well, or bed well, as they say, in the work of the Lord, we must look as well to what we build as the Basis we raise, and set it on, or else it will not stand and abide, we see what a fire good intentions have kindled on the earth, and we are told that many of them burn in Hell. I may intent to beat down Idolatry, and bury Religion in the ruins of that which I beat down; I may intent the establishing of a Conmmon-wealth, and shake the foundation of it; I may intent the Reformation of a Church, and fill it with Locusts and Caterpillars innumerable: I may intent the Glory of God, and do that, for which his Name shall be evil spoken of; and it will prove but a poor plea, when we blasphemed him, to say we did it for his Glory.  
Let us then lay aside these Apologies, for they are not Apologies, but Accusations, and detain us longer in our evil ways, than the false beauty, and deceitful promises of a temptation could, which we should not yield to so often, did not these betray us, nor be fools so long, if we had not something to say for ourselves.  
And since we cannot answer the expostulation with these, since these will be no plea in the Court of heaven, before the tribunal of Christ, let us change our plea, and let us answer the last part of the Text, with the first, the moriemini, with the convertimini, answer him, that we will Turn, and then he will never ask any more, Why will ye die? but change his Language, and assure us, we shall not die at all. And our answer is penned to our hands by the Prophet Jerem. Ecce accedimus, Behold we come, we turn unto thee, for in our God is the Salvation of Israel; and our Saviour hath registered his, in his Gospel, and left it as an invitation to turn, Come unto me all ye that be weary of your evil ways, and are heavy laden, feel the burden you did sweat under, whilst you were in them; and I will ease you; that is, I will deliver you from this body of sin, fill you with my Grace, enlighten your understandings, sprinkle your Hearts from an evil Conscience, direct your eye, levelly your intentions, lead you in the ways of life, and so fit and prepare you for my kingdom in Heaven; To which he bring us etc.    

THE THIRTEENTH SERMON.  GAL. 4.39. 
But as then, he that was born after the flesh, persecuted him that was born after the Spirit, even so is it now.  
IN which words the Apostle doth present to our eye the true face of the Church in an Allegory of Sarah and Hagar, of Ismacl, and Isaac, of mount Sinat and mount Zion, which things are an Allegory; verse 24. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, for it speaks one thing, and means another, and carries wrapped up ●n it, a more excellent sense, than the words at first hearing do promise.  
Take the full scheme, and delineation in brief. 1. Here is Sarah and Hagar, that is, Servitude and Freedom. 2. Here are two Cities; Jerusalem, that now is, the Synagogue of the Jews, and that Jerusalem which is above; the vision of peace, and mother of all the faithful; for by the New Covenant we are made children unto God. 3. Here is the Law promulged, and thundered out on mount Sinai; and the Gospel, the Covenant of Grace, which God published, not from the mount, but from Heaven itself, by the voice of his Son. In all you see a fair correspondence, and agreement, between the Type, and the thing, but so that Jerusalem our mother is still the Highest; the Gospel glorious with the liberty it brought, and the Law putting on a yoke, breathing nothing but servitude, and fear; Isaac an heir, and Ishmael thrust out, the Christian more honourable, than the Jew.  
The curtain is now drawn, and we may enter in, even within the vail, and take that sense, which the Apostle himself hath drawn out so plainly to us. And indeed, it is a good, and pleasing sight to see our privilege and priority in any figure, to find out our inheritance in such an Heir; our liberty and freedom though in a woman, who would not lay claim to so much peace, and so much liberty? who would not challenge kindred of Isaac, and a Burgesseship in Jerusalem? 'tis true, every Christian may; But that we mistake not, and think all is peace, and liberty, that we boast not against the branches that are cut off, he brings in a corrective, to check and keep down all swelling, and lifting up ourselves; the adversative particle said, but; But as then, so now: we are indeed of Sarah, the freewoman, we are children of the promise, we are from Jerusalem, which is from above; said, but: if we will inherit with Isaac, we must be persecuted with Isaac, if we will be of the Covenant of grace, we must take up the Cross; if we look for a City, whose maker, and founder is God; we must walk to it in our blood; in other things we rise above the Type, but here we fall, and our condition is the same; But as then, he that was born after the flesh, persecuted him, who was born after the spirit, even so it is now.  
The vail is drawn, and you may behold presented to your view, and consideration a double parallel. 1. Of the times, But as then, so now. 2. Of the occurrences; the acts, and monuments of these times, divided between two, the Agent, and the patiented, those that are born after the flesh persecuting, and those that are born after the spirit suffering persecution. The them was not long, it began and ended in a scoff: for Sarah saw Ishmael mocking of Isaac Gen. 21.9. and yet this scoff began those 400. years of persecution foretold by God, Gen. 15.13. and is drawn down by our Apostle, to the times of grace. But the now is of larger extent, and reacheth even to the end of the World, from the Angel's Anthem, to the last Trump, when Christ shall resign all power into his Father's hand. But because we cannot well take a full view of them both, and the Church of Christ is one, and the same from the first just man Abel, to the last man, that shall stand upon the earth, though different in outward Administration: as Tertul. speaks upon another occasion, 
Tertul. de pallio  nunquam ipsa semper alia, etsi semper ipsa, quando alia, because receiving degrees of perfection, yet always one, and the same, when in some respects it appeared not the same; we will therefore draw both times together, both the then and the now: the time under the Law, and the time under the Gospel, within the compass of this one position, and Doctrine, That, though the privilege and prerogative, (I may say) Royalties of the Church be many yet was she never exempted from persecution, but rather had entailed it on her, as an inheritance. And when we shall have made this good, 1. from the consideration of the quality of the persons, here upon the stage; the one persecuting, the other Suffering; the one born after the flesh, the other after the spirit. 2. From the nature, and constitution of the Church, which in this World is ever Militant, 3. From the providence and Wisdom of God, who put this enmity between these two seeds, between those that are born after the flesh, and those who are born after the spirit; When we have passed over these, we will in the last place draw it down to ourselves, look back upon persecution brandishing its terrors upon them both, and so learn to take up, and manage the weapons of our warfare, and prepare ourselves against the day of trial; But as then he, that was born after the flesh persecuted etc.  
1. The persons. That no privilege of the Church can exempt her from persecution, we may read in the persons themselves; the one born after the flesh, the other born after the spirit; the reason is hid, but visible enough, in their very Attributes. For as the flesh lusteth against the spirit, and these two are contrary, 
Gal. 5.17.  i.e. are carried by the sway of their very natures to contrary things; so the children of the one, and of the other are contrary. Of the first, our Apostle will tell us, that they killed the Lord Jesus, and killed their own prophets, and persecuted the Christians; and the reason follows, 
1 Thes. 2.15.  which indeed is against all reason, but was the best motive they had; for as they hated God, so were they contrary to all men, looking with an evil eye upon the graces of God in others, and whatsoever savored of the spirit, like Hannibal in the story, can part with any thing, but war and contention; can be without their native Country, but not without an Enemy, and the reason is plain; for that which is born of the flesh, is flesh, that is, Hath all the qualities, and malignity of flesh, is full of the works of the flesh, which are the very principles of contention, and persecution, From whence are wars, and tumults, saith Saint James, 
Jam. 4.1.  are they not from those lusts, which fight in their members? From envy, and malice, from Covetousness, and ambition, which are the works of the flesh, and are raised from the flesh, as one creature is from another of the same kind, or rather as a Serpent is out of carrion, or a scarabee out of dung; which if they cannot find occasion of doing evil, will work and force it out of good itself; so Cain the first disciple of the dvil, as Saint Bas. calls him, 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Eas. de ● invidia. 1 John 3.12.  slew his brother for no other reason but this, because his works were evil and his brothers good; for he was, saith the Text, of the wicked one, (for to be born of the flesh, and to be born of the devil, are one and the same thing.) From the father of envy, though not (as the Rabbis fancy) born of the very filth, and seed which the Serpent conveyed into Eve. If there were no evil men, there could be no persecution; for I cannot see how ' its possible for good men to persecute one another. It is more probable, that Satan should rise up against Satan, and one devil cast out another. Evil men may rage's against evil men, a covetous man may rob and spoil a covetous man, and a proud man may swell against a proud man, and an ambitious man lay hold on him, that is climbing, and pull him back into the dust, for that which made them brethren in evil, may make them enemies; Herod and Pilate may fall out, and then be reconciled, and join their forces, as one man, against Christ, and then fall asunder, and be at distance again. The wicked may gather together, and with one Heart, and with one Soul pursue the innocent, and hold out their swords together, and join their forces to rob and spoil them, and then, when they are to divide the spoil, turn the points of their sword at one another's breasts; for they cannot make way to the end of their hopes, but by striking down them, that seem to stand in their way, cannot be rich, but by making others poor, cannot be at liberty, but by binding others, cannot soar to their desires height, but by laying others on the ground; cannot live at ease, unless they see others in their grave; which are the several kinds of persecution, as it were, the strings of that Scorpion. For that which is born of the flesh, is flesh. Take covetousness, and ambition the proper and natural issues of the flesh, and as the Apostle joins it every where, with uncleanness, so may we with hatred and persecution; for these make that desolation upon the earth, the only Incendiaries in a Church, or Commonwealth, and the great troublers of the peace of Israel. These destroy the walls, and break down the towers of a City, these rend the Veil, nay, dig up the very foundation of the Temple, (the spirit is named, but from the flesh is the persecution.) For what did the Husbandmen set upon the Lord of the Vineyard Matt. 21. but to gain the inheritance? what set the whole City of Ephesus in an uproar, but Demetrius his Rhetoric, the brutish, but strong persuasions of the flesh; from this craft have we this gain? Acts 19 Look back upon every age of the Church: was there ever rend, or Schism which these made not? was there ever Heresy, which these coined not? was there ever fire, which they kindled not? was there ever torment, which these invented not? was there ever evil in the City, which these have not done? And though the truth, and Religion were held up, and shown openly, for a pretence, yet these envenomed the heart, and strengthened the hand of all the enemies of the Church, those whet the sword, and made the furnace of Persecution, seven times hotter than it would have been, the flesh is the treasury, from whence these winds blow that rage, and beat down all before them. And thus it is with every one that is born of the flesh, he is ever in labour with mischief, is ever teeming and travelling with persecution, and wants nothing but occasion, as a Midwife to bring it forth.  
And now as we have beheld one person in this Tragedy, and the chiefest actor; so let us look upon the other, the patiented born after the spirit; and behold a Lamb (for the spirit who came down like a dove begets no tigers or Lions) Behold a man, a worm and no man, virumperpissicium, as Seneca calls Socrates, 
Sen. ep. 104.  a man of sufferance deaf, or if not, yet dumb to all reproaches; and when injuries are loudest, as silent as the Grave, kissing the hand that strikes him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, as Naz. candidatum crucis, as Tertul. on that is so sitted and prepared for the cross, that he looks upon is, 
spiritualised in matter  as upon a preferment: poor Lamb, he cannot by't and devour; he cannot scatter the Counsels of the crafty, he cannot bind the hands of the mighty; ignorant and foolish, as David speaks, as a beast in this world, a man in nothing but in Christ Jesus; being elemented and made up of love, and peace, and long-suffering, gentleness, meekness, 
Gal. 5.22.  the rinciples of the spirit, having no security, no policy, no eloquence, no strength, but that which lies in his innocency and truth, which he carries about as a cure, but is looked upon as a persecution, by those who will not be healed. Why hast thou set me up as a mark? saith Job, Job 7. why? every one that is born of the spirit is set up as a mark. Saint Paul calls it a spectacle, 
1 Cor. 4.6.  as a man appointed to die, or as Tertul. renders that place, elegit veluti Bestiarios, culled out, and set apart to fight with beasts, a mark for envy to shoot out her eye at, for malice to strike, and spit at; for every Shimei to fling a stone at, and a curse together, every Ziba to cousin, every Judas to betray; a mark for all the Devils Artillery, for all the fiery darts, that malice and subtlety can draw out of Hell: for he must appear (saith Seneca out of Plato) as a fool, that he may be wise; as weak, that he may be strong; as base and vile, that he may be more honourable; and if you ask a reason of his, 
Jerem. 15.10.  we can give no other but this: because he is born of the spirit, for he is no sooner thus born, but he comes forth a contentious man, that striveth with the whole earth, nor can the spirit breath, and work in him, but he shakes every corner of the earth, every thing that is from the earth earthy. It strives to pull the wanton from the harlot's lips, to levelly the ambitious, with those who are of low degree, it beats the Covetous from his Mammon, it wrists the sword out of the hand of the revenger; it strikes out the teeth of the oppressor, it marks the Schismatic and avoids him, it Anathematizeth the Heritick; It is that Angel which stands in our way, when we are running greedily for a reward; it is that Prophet, that forewarns us; that hand on the wall, that writes against us; the Cock that calls us to repentance; that Trump, that summons us to Judgement, well said Martin Luther, Nihil scandalosius veritate, there is not a more scandalous, a more offensive thing in the world, than that spirit of truth which begets and constitutes a Christian; which much resembles the Loadstone quae trahit simul & avertit, which is at once both attractive and averse; at one part draws the Iron, at the other loathes it, as the truth knits all good men, all that are born of the spirit in a bond of peace but withdraws itself, will not join with the evil, with those who are born after the flesh, and so makes them enemies; and therefore, I may add to Luther, Nihil periculosius veritate, there is not a more dangerous thing in the world (in respect of the world) than the truth; for as the truth (as it was said of Noah) Heb. 11. Condemns the world, that is, convinceth it of infidelity, and so leaves it open to the sentence of condemnation, so doth the world also condemn the truth: 1. By reproaching it, and bringing up an evil report of it, as an unnecessary, thriftless, troublesome, seditious thing Ecquis Chrislus cum suâ fabulâ? said the Heathen, what ado here is with Christ and his Legend? and so saith every Atheist in his heart, every one that is born after the flesh. 2. By selling it; as the wanton doth for a smile; the covetous for bread; for that which is not bread, the ambitious for a breath, a sound, a thought; the Superstitious for a Picture, for an Idol, which is nothing: and then 3. By violence against the friends and lovers of truth, that they may drive it out of the world, by commanding and charging them to speak no more in that name, by persecuting them, 
Gen. 22.6.  as Ishmael did Isaac with a scoff, (for this is all we read, vidit ludentem, Sarah saw Ishmael mocking him) and this scoff, this derision, whatsoever it was, Saint Paul calls a persecution, this is the Devil's Method to make a scoff, the prologue to a Tragedy, to usher in persecution with a jeer, first put the Christians in the skins of beasts, and then bait them to death with dogs, first disgrace them, and then ad Leones, away with them to the Lions, first call the orthodox Bishops traditores, and then beat them down at the very Altar, first make them vile, and then nothing; the Psalmist fully expresseth it, 
Psal. 55.20.  swords are in their lips, for every word these scoffers speak, eats flesh; it is a mock now, it will be a blow, it will be a wound, it gins in a Libel, it ends in rise, kill and eat, the first letter the Alpha is a mock, the last, the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, is desolation. Thus the son of the freewoman, he that is born after the spirit, is ever the Patient, and the son of the Bondwoman, he that is born after the flesh, lays on sure strokes, unus venture, sed non unus animus, saith Aust. as the two Twins strove in the womb of Rebeckah, so these two, the Good and the Evil strive in the World, the one by silence, the other by noise, the one by being what he is, the other by being Angry, that he is so; the one by his life, the other by his Sword. 
Ecclus. 2.1.  Art thou borne of the Spirit, a true member of Christ? then prepare thyself for temptation, as the son of Syrach speaks; for when thou hast put on These Graces, That make thee one, thou hast with them put on also a Crown of Thorns; if thou be an Isaac, thou shalt find an Imsael.  
3. From the Nature of the true Church.  
Thus then by looking on the persons in the Text, you may plainly see the face, and condition of the Church, and that no privilege she hath, can exempt her from persecution, which will yet more plainly appear from the very Nature, and constitution of the Church, which is best seen in her Blood, when she is militant, which is more full and expressive, than any other representation, any other Title she hath. For do we say she is visible? the best, and truest parts of her are not so; we see the Professor, but not the Saint; all we can challenge, is but a charitable guests and conjecture; for the Lord only knoweth who are his. 
1 Tim. 2.19.  Do we call her Catholic and Universal? 
Christi nomen & regnum ubique porrigitur, omnibus Christus aequalis, omnibus rex, omnibus Judex, Omnibus Deus & Dominus est. Tert. adv. Judaeos. c. 7.  she is so, when her Number is but small; she was so when Christ built her as a House upon a rock, open to all, and ready to receive them, though not many rich, not many Noble entered: shall we give her that high and proud title of Infallible? Although she be so in those Doctrines, without which she cannot be a Church, yet in many Things, we err all: But when we draw her in her own blood, when we call her Militant, we bring her in wrestling, not only against flesh and blood, against men, but against Principalities, and all those Powers of Darkness; then we show her as she is. To say, she is the Body of Christ filled with him, who filleth all things, is to set her up as a mark for the World, and the Devil to shoot at; and this, To set her up as a mark, is to build her up into a Church: so that, Though persecution comes forth in several shapes, with more or less Terror, yet to say the Church is ever free from all, is as full of Absurdity, as to say; A man may live without a soul.  
But now, take it with all its Horror, accompanied with whips and Scorpions, with fire and sword; yet is it so fare from the destroying the true Church, That it rather establishes, enlarges and Adorns her. For the Church of Christ, and the Kingdoms of the Earth, are not of the same making, and Constitution, have not the same soul and Spirit to animate them: These may seem to be built upon Aire, they are so soon thrown down; This is raised upon a Holy Hill; These have a weak and frail hand to set them up, and as weak a hand may cast them down; This is the work of Omnipotency, which fences it about, and secures it from Death and Hell: These depend upon the Opinions, upon the affections, upon the lusts of men, which change oftener than the wind; upon the breath of that Monster, the Multitude, which is any thing, and which is nothing, which is, it knows not what, and never agrees with itself, is never one, but in a Tempest, in Tumult and Sedition; This is founded upon the eternal Decree, and will of GOD, and upon Immutability itself, and shall stand fast for ever: These when they are in their height and glory, are under uncertainty and chance, The Church under the wing and shadow of that Providence, which can neither err, nor miscarry, but worketh mightily, and irrisistibly to its end. His evertendis una dies, Hora, momentum sufficit, These are long a raising, and are blown down in a moment, but this is as everlasting as his love, that built it; in a word, these are worn out by Time; This is but melted and purged in it, and shall then be most Glorious, when Time shall be no more.  
I know well; Persecution appears to us as a Fury sent from Hell, and every Hair, every Threat is a Snake, that Hisseth at us; but 'tis our sensuality, and Cowardice that whips us; yet, the common consent of all men hath given her a fairer shape, and they that run from her, do prefer the suffering part, and as our Saviour said, It is more blessed to Give, then to Receive, so is it vox Populi, The voice of the People (though they practise it not) It is better to suffer, then to Oppress; even they who have the sword in their Hand, and breath nothing but Terror and Death, will rage's yet more, if you say, They persecute you; and either magnify their Cruelty with the name of Justice, or else seek to persuade the world, that they, and they alone suffer Persecution. Every man flies persecution, and every man is willing to own it. The Arrians complained of the cruelty of the Orthodox, and the Orthodox of the fury of the Arrians; vos dicitis pati persecutionem, saith Austin to the Manichees, 
August. ep. 48. et 68  " you say, you suffer, but our Houses are laid waste by you; you say you suffer, but your Armed men put out our eyes; you say, you suffer, but we fall by the sword, what you do to us, you will not impute to yourselves; but what you do to yourselves, you impute to us. Thus it was then; And how do we look back upon the Marian days, as if the Bottomless Pit did never smoke but then? and are not they of the Romish party, as loud in their Complaints, as if the Devil were never let lose till now? we bring forth our Martyrs with a Faggot on their shoulder, and they theirs with a Tyburn Tippet, (as Father Latimer calls it) and both glory in Persecution.  
We see then, every party claims a Title to it, and counts it an Honour to be placed in the Number of those that suffer; and indeed, 
Floridi Martyres dicuntur à Cypriano. ep. 20, 21.  Persecution is the Honour, the prosperity, the flourishing Condition of the Church; for it brings her out of the Shadow into the Sun, makes her indeed Vifible, puts her to her whole Armour, to her whole strength, to the whole substance of her Faith, That she may suffer and Conquer, which indeed is to be a Church. Nazianzen, I remember, calls it the Mystery of Persecution, Sacramentum sanguinis, the Sacrament and Mystery of blood, a visible sign of Invisible Grace, where one thing is seen, and another Thing done, where the Christian suffers, and Rejoices; is east down and promoted; falls by the sword, to rise to Eternity; where Glory lies hid in Disgrace; Advantage in loss; Increase in Diminution; and life in Death; Ecclesia in attonito, a Church shining in the midst of all the blackness, and darkness, and Terrors of the world.  
For again, As when Commonwealths are in their best estate, and flourish, every man fits under his own Vine and Figtree, every one walks in his own Calling. The Scholar studies, the Merchant Trafficks, the Tradesman sells; The Husbandman Tills and Ploughs the Ground; so the time of persecution to the True Church, to that Body, which is made up of those, who are borne after the spirit, is a Day of Salvation, 
1 Tim. 6.22.  a Day to work in her Calling (for hereunto you were called, saith the Apostle) where she sits under the shadow of God's wings, where she studies patience, and Christian Resolution, where she ploughs up the Fallow ground, and sows the seeds of Righteousness, where she Trafficks for the rich Pearl, and buys it with her blood, where every Member Acts in its proper place, by the virtue, and to the Honour of the Head.  
But this you may say, is True, if we take the Church as Invisible, made up of sheep only, as a Collection of Saints; To speak truly, Charity builds up no other Church; for all she beholds, are either so, or in a possibility of having that Honour, though the Eye of Faith can see but a small number to make up that Body; But take the Church under what Notion you please, yet it will be easy to observe, that Persecution may enlarge her Territories, Increase her number, and make her more visible, than she was, when the weather was fair, and no cloud or Darkness hung over her; that when her branches were lopped off, she spread the more, That when her members were dispersed, there were more gathered to her, when they were driven about the world, they carried that sweet smelling favour about them, which drew in multitudes to follow them, That in their flight they begat many Children unto Christ, insomuch, 
Crudelitas vestra illecebra est Sectae. Tert. Ap. c. L.  saith Saint Hierom, That una vox totius mundi Christus, Christ was become the Language of the whole world. Plures efficimur, quoties metimur, when Christians are driven about the world, and when they are driven out of the World, they multiply, so that we may conclude; That so fare are all the Graces, and beauty of the Church, from raising any Privilege, to exempt her from persecution, that they are rather Occasions and Provocations to raise one, and make Persecution itself a Privilege.  
For in the last place. As it was then, so is it now; And he doth not say, It may be so, or It is by Chance, but Ita est, so it is by the Providence of God, 
Providentia ratio ordinis rerum ad Fiem. Aquin.  which consists, and is seen in the well Ordering, and bringing of every Motion and Action of man to a right End, which commonly runs in a contrary Course to that, which Flesh and blood, Humane Infirmity would find out. Eternity, and mortality, Majesty, and Dust and Ashes, wisdom and Ignorance steer not the same course, nor are they bound to the same point: My ways are not your ways, 
Is. 55.8.  nor my thoughts yours, saith God by his Prophet, to a foolish Nation, who in extremity of folly would be wiser than God; Mine are not as yours, not such uncertain, such vain, such contradictory and deceitful Thoughts, but as fare removed from yours, as Heaven is from the Earth. And as he hath made the Heaven, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, as Basil. as a veil of his Divine Majesty, so in all his proceed and Operations upon man, 
Deus tum maximè magnus, cum homini pusiltus, tum maximè optimus, cum homini non bonus. Tert. l. 2. adv. Martion, c. 2.  he is Deus sub velo, a God under a veil, Hidden, but yet seen, In a dark Character, but read; not touched, but felt; Merciful, when he seems angry; Just, when in outward appearance he favours Oppression, then shadowing us under his wing, when we think he Thunders against us, The same yesterday in the calm, and to day in the storm; then raising his Church as high as Heaven, when we tremble, and imagine he hath opened the Gates of Hell to devour her; whilst we stand at distance, and gaze and wonder at his Counsels and dispositions, and understand them not. Were flesh and blood to build a Church, we should draw our lines out in a pleasant place; It should not be as a House subject to the winds and weather, but some house of pleasure, a Seraglio, a Royal Palace; It should not be in Egypt, or Babylon, but in the Fortunate Lands, or in Paradise; Our Lily should be set fare enough from the Thorns; For we would go to Heaven without any Ifs or Ands, without any butts or difficulties; we would be eased, but not weary; we would be saved, but not believe, or believe, but not suffer, we would hear God, but not in the Whirlwind; Enter into his Kingdom, but not with Tribulation; That is, would have God neither provident, nor Just, nor Wise, that is (which is a sad Interpretation) would have no God at all.  
But God's method is best, and is drawn out by his manifold Wisdom, Eph. 3.10. nor could it possibly be otherwise; 
Honorem operis fructus excusat.  For that is Method and Order with him, which we take to be confusion, and that which we call persecution, is his Art, his way of making of Saints, de perverso auxiliatur, raising us by those evils, 
Tertul. Scorpiac. c. 5.  we labour under, and as in his manifold Wisdom, he redeemed mankind; so the manner and method of working out our Salvation, is from the same Wisdom and Providence, which as it set an Oportet upon Christ to suffer for us, so it set an Oportet upon the Church, to have a Fellowship in his Sufferings; 
Act. 14.22.  We must through many Afflictions be consecrated, be made perfect, and so enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. Nor Indeed, Take us, as we are, polluted and unclean, could we enter any other way, not enter into the New Heavens, but purged and refined and transformed by these into a new Creature, Cured by diseases, healed by Bruises, raised by our Fall, and made more spiritual by the contradiction of those who are borne after the flesh, more isaac's, then before for the many Ismaels': so that it is not only agreeable to the wisdom of God, but convenient to the weakness of man: God could not save us, we could not be saved any other way; Oportet, we must go this way; Nay, Datum est, 
Philip. 1.29.  it is a Gift, It is given not only to believe, but to suffer, a Gift for which heaven itself is Given; and it is a Beatitude, Blessed Poverty, 
Matth. 5.  blessed mourning, blessed persecution; blessedness set upon these as a Crown, or as rich Embroidery upon Sackcloth, or some courser stuff.  
And thus you see, the Church is not, cannot be exempt from Persecution, if either we consider the Quality of the Persons themselves, or the Nature and constitution of the Church, or the Providence and Wisdom, and Mercy of God; As it was then, So is it now, In Abraham's Family, Ishmael mocks and persecutes Isaac; In the World, the Synagogue persecutes the Church, and in the Church one Christian persecutes another; It was so it is so, and it will be so to the end of the World: Let us now look back upon this dreadful, blessed sight, and see what Advantage we can work, what light we can strike out of this cloud of blood, to direct & strengthen us in this our Warfare, That we may be Faithful unto Death, and so receive the Crown of Life.  
And first, knowing these Terrors, as the Apostle speaks, seeing Persecution entailed as it were upon the Church, seeing a kind of Providence and Necessity, that it should be so; Let us not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, as Saint Peter speaks, Think it Strange, or be amazed at the fiery Trial, not be dismayed when we see that befall the Church, which befalls the Kingdoms and Commonwealths in the world, when we see the face of the Church gather blackness, and not to shine in that Beauty, in which formerly we beheld her. For what strange-thing is it, that Ishmael should mock Isaac? that a serpent should by't? or a Lion roar? that the world should be the world? or the Church the Church? For the Church, so far as she is visible, in respect of its visibility and outward form is as subject to change, as any other thing that is seen, as those things which we use to say, are but the balls of fortune to play with; for those things of the Church, which are seen are but temporal, those which are eternal are not seen; 
2 Cor. 4. last v  the fashion of the world passeth away saith Saint Paul, and so doth the fashion of the Church, and when the scene is changed, it comes forth with another face, and speaks like a servant, that spoke like a Queen; in brief, it is turned about on the wheel of change, subject to the same storms, to the same injuries, to the same craft and violence, which the Philosopher says, make that alteration in States, changes them not into those which may bear some faint resemblance of them, but into that which is most unlike and contrary to them, sets up that in their place, leaving them lost, and labouring under the expectation of another change. Thus it is, and ever was, and ever shall be with the Church in respect of outward profession, which is the face of the Church, nor hath the seed of the woman so bruised the Serpent's head, but that he still bites at the heel. Behold the Children of Israel in the wilderness, sometimes in straits; and anon in larger ways; sometimes sighting Exod. 17. sometimes resting as at mount Sinai; sometimes going forward, and sometimes turning backward, sometimes on the mountains, and sometimes in the valleys, sometimes in places of sweetness, as Mithkah, and sometimes in places of bitterness, as Marah. Behold them in a more settled condition, when their Church had Kings for her Nursing-fathers', how did Idolatry follow Religion at the heel and supplant it? and of all their kings how few of them were not Idolaters? how many professors were there, when Eliah the great Prophet could see but one? and how can that have always the same countenance, which is under the power and wills of mortal men, which change so oft, sometimes in the same man, but are never long the same in many, amongst whom one is so unlike the other, that he will not suffer that to stand long, which a former hand hath set up, but will model the Church as he please, and of those who look upon it with an eye of distaste, will leave so few, and under such a cloud, that they shall be scarce visible. Not to speak of former times of those seven Golden candlesticks which are now removed out of their place, nor of those many alterations in after ages, but to come home to ourselves, our reformed Religion cannot boast of many more years, then make up the age of a man. That six year's light of the Gospel in the days of Edward the Saint, was soon overspread and darkened with a cloud of blood in Queen Mary's reign, since when we willing to believe (for we made our boast of it) that it shined out in beauty to these present times, which have thought fit to reform the Reformation itself; and now for the glory of it, for its order and Discipline, which is the face of it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉? where is it to be seen? we may say of it, as Job doth of the frailty of man; It dieth, it wasteth, it giveth up the ghost, and where is it? talk what we will of perpetuity, of visibility, of outward profession Quod cuiquam accidere potest, cuivis potest, what we have seen done to one Church, may certainly be done to another, may be done to all; what was done in Asia, may be done in Europe, and if the candlestick be removed out of one, it may be removed out of any place, nor is that Church, which calls herself the mother and Queen of the rest, secure from violence, but may be driven from her seat, and pomp, though she be bold to tell the world, that the Gatesof Hell shall not prevail against her. Religion ('tis true) is as mount Zion which cannot be moved, but standeth sast for ever; no sword, no power can divide me from it, nor force it out of my embraces; this hath its protection its salaogardium, from Omnipotency; but the outward profession of it, the form and manner in which we profess it; in a word, that face of the Church, which is visible is as subject to change, as all those things are which are under the Moon. All I shall say is Nolite mirari, wonder not at it, for whatsoever changes and alterations there be in the outward profession of Religion; Religion and the Church of Christ is still the same, the same in her nakedness and poverty, which she had in her cloth of wrought Gold, and all her Embroidery. Marvel not then, for this admiration is the child of ignorance, an exhalation from the flesh, and hath more in it of Ishmael, then of Isaac.  
The third Inference.  
And that we may not think it strange; let us in the next place have a right judgement in all things, and not set up the Church in our fancy, and shape her out by the state and pomp of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of our minds. 
Rom. 12.2.  For by looking to steadfastly on the world we carry the image of it about with us whithersoever we go, and make it the Idea, and platform of a Church; a Mornarchy is the best form of Government saith the Philosopher, and therefore say they at Rome, the fittest for the Church. Judges are set up to determine controversies in the Commonwealth, and by this pattern they erect a Tribunal for a Judge in matters of faith. Temporal felicity and peace is the desire of the whole earth, hence they have made it a note and mark of the Church of Christ; like the wanton Painter in Pliny, who drew the picture of a Goddess in the shape and likeness of his Paramour, and thought that was best and fittest, which he best liked. From hence it is, from our too much familiarity with the world, from our daily parleys with vanity, from our wanton Hospitality, and free reception of it into our thoughts, and the delight we take in such a guest, we are deceived, and lose all the strength of our judgement, not able to distinguish between Heaven and earth, or discern that one differeth from the other in glory; and being thus blinded, having this vail drawn before our face, we are very apt to take the Church and the world to be alike, miscere Deum & saeculum, to mingle God and the world together, and place ourselves betwixt them, and so make vanity itself our companion in our way to happiness. From hence it is, that when we see the sword and persecution to rage against the professors of the Gospel, we think, that not only the Glory is departed, but the light of Israel is quite put out, that when a kingdom is shaken, and wasted, the gates of Hell hath prevailed against the Church: as groundless a conceit well near, as if we should take the description of Heaven in the Revelation to be true in the letter, and think that it is a City of pure Gold, that the foundations of the walls are adorned with precious stones, that every gate is pearl, and the streets shine like Glass.  
And therefore in the third place let us cast down these imaginations, these bubbles of wind and air, 
The third.  blown up by the flesh, the worse part, which doth soon bring on a persecution, and soon fear it; and let us in the place of these build up a royal fort, build ourselves up in our holy faith, and so fit and prepare ourselves against the fiery trial: For as amongst the Heathen, those Ceremonies were called Mysteries which were precedaneous, and went before the Mysteries, 
Clem. Alex l. 1. storm.  〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, and he may be said to fight, who doth but flourish, and arms, and fits himself for the battle: so the blessed spirit every where calls upon those who are born of him to watch, and pray, and stand upon their guard, 
Ephe. 6.11.  to put on the whole armour of God, that when the devil assaults them in a storm of persecution, they may be able to stand, in time of peace, to prepare for war, to look upon the sword before hand, to behold the glittering of it, all its terror; and take it up and handle it, and then by the wisdom, which the spirit teacheth, dispute it out of its force and terror, saying within themselves, This can but kill the body which is every day in killing itself, living, and dying, building up itself, which is next to ruin, but if I faint and fall under it, I lose my soul which God breathed into me, and then made as immortal as himself, and whilst I fly from the edge of the sword, my backsliding carries me into the pit of destruction. Thus by a familiar conversing with it, before the blow, 
In pace, labour, & incommodis bellum pati discunt; in armis deambulando, campum decurrendo. fossam metrendo, etc. Tert. ad Marry res. c. 3.  by opposing our Hopes of Happiness, to the smart and Death it may bring, by setting up Life, against Death, and Eternity against a moment, we may abate its force and violence, and so conquer before we fight. This is our military Discipline, this is our Spiritual exercise, our Martyrdom, before Martyrdom, This binds the sacrifice with cords to the Horns of the Altar, and makes it ready to be offered up; This prepares us for War, that we may have peace; peace, before we fight, whilst we rest on the Authority, 
In militaris disciplinae sinu & rutela, serenus beatae pacis status acquiescit. Val. Max. l. 7. c. 3.  and command of our Emperor, and in his strength (for we may do all Things in Christ, that strengtheneth us) and then peace, everlasting Peace, the reward and Crown of victory. Every day to a Christian Soldier, is Die Praeliaris, a day of Battle, in which he makes some assault or other, and gains advantage on the adversary; for however the day may be fair, and no cloud appear, yet the sentence is gone out, All that will live Godly in Christ Jesus, must suffer Persecution: 
2 Tim 3.12.  What shall all be torn on the rack; and bruised on the wheel? shall all be sacrificed? shall all be Martyrs? yes, all shall be Martyrs, though many of them lose not a drop of blood. Habet & pax suos Martyrs, for there is a kind of Martyrdom in Peace, for he that thus prepares and fits himself, he that by an assiduous mortifying of himself (which indeed is in some degree to Deify himself) builds up in himself this firm resolution to leave all, to suffer all for the name of Christ and the Gospel; he suffers, before he suffers, he suffers, though he never suffers, there wanting nothing to complete it, but an Ishmael, but the Tyrant, and the Executioner: he cannot but be willing to leave the world, who is gone out of it already.  
Be ye therefore ready, for in an Hour, when you think not, 
Matt. 24.44.  the Son of man, the Captain of your Salvation may come, and put you into the lists: though the trumpet sound not to battle, yet, 
Bellum status est nomen, qui potest etiam esse, cum operationes ejus non exerit. Grot. de Jure belli, & pacis.  is it not peace. And if you ask me, how you shall make ready, and address yourselves? what preparation is required? I may say, it is no more than this; To love the Truth, which you profess, to make it your guide, your Counsellor, your Oracle, whilst the light shines upon your head, when that says Go, to Go, and when it says, Do this to do it; 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, 
1 Tim. 4.7. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Basil. de Humil.  to exercise your souls unto Godliness, and so incorporate, as it were, and make it Consubstantial with them, leave and imprint them there in an Indelible Character. For if you thus display, and manifest it in every Action of your life, if you thus fasten it to your soul, and make it a part of it, in time of peace, you will not then part with it at a blast, at the mock of an Ishmael, or the breath of a Tyrant, which is but in his Nostrils, you will not forsake it in time of Temptation. Love, if it be true, oh, it is mighty in operation, stronger than Death it self, and will meet and cope with him, though he comes towards us on his pale Horse, 
Mieremb. de arte volunt.  with all his pomp and Terror; Love, saith a devout Writer is a Philosopher, and can discover the Nature, and qualities, the malignity, and weakness of those Evils, which are set up to shake our Constancy, and strike us from that rock, on which we are founded: who is a God like unto our God? saith David, what can be like to that we love; what can be equal to it? if our Hearts be set on the Truth; to it the whole world is not worth a thought, 
Nullum spectaculum sine concussione spiritus Tert. de Spect. c. 15.  nor can that shop of vanities show forth any thing, that can shake a soul, or make the passions Turbulent, and unruly, that can draw a Tear or force a smile, that can deject it with sorrow, or make it mad with joy, that can raise an Anger, or strike a fear, or set a desire on the wing; every object is dull and dead, and hath nothing of Temptation in it for to love the truth, is all in all, and it bespeaks the world, as Saint Paul did the Grave, where is thy victory? nor heigh, 
Rom. 8.35,36,37,38,39.  nor depth can separate us from that we love. And love is a Sophister, able to answer every Argument, wave every subtlety, and defeat the Deviills 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, his wiles and crafty erterprises: nay, Love is a Magician, and can conjure down all the terrors, and noise of Persecution, which are those evil Spirits, which amaze and cow us. Love can rouse and quicken our drooping and fainting spirits, and strengthen the most feeble knees, and the hands that hang down; If we love the Truth, if Truth be the Antecedent, the consequent is most Natural and Necessary, and it cannot but follow, that therefore we will, when there is reason, lay down our lives for it.  
For, again, what is said of Faith, is true of Love, it purifies the Conscience, and when that is clean and pure, the soul is in perfect Health, cheerful and active, full of courage, either to do or suffer, ready for that disgrace, which brings honour, for that smart which begets joy for that wound, which shall heal, for that Death, which is a Gate opened to Eternity, ready to go out and join with that Peace, which a good Conscience, which is her Angelus custos, her Angel to keep her in all her ways, hath sealed & assured unto her. A good conscience is an everlasting, neverfailing foundation the, foundation of that bliss which the noble army of martyrs now enjoy. But then, the clamours & checks of a polluted one, will not give us leisure enough to build up an holy resolution: for when we have detained the Truth of God in unrighteousness, 
1 Rom. 81.  as the Apostle speaks, kept it down as a Prisoner, and not suffered it to work in us any Thing like unto itself, when in the whole course of our life, we have kept her Captive under our sensual Lusts, and affections, have not harkened to her voice, when she bids us do this, but done, the contrary, when in our ruff and jollity we have thus slighted, and baffled her; it is not probable, that in Time of Danger, and Astonishment, she should have so much power over us, as to win us, and to prevail with us to suffer for her sake, but we shall willingly, nay, hastily throw her off; and renounce her, when to part with her is to escape the evil that we most fear, and avoid the blow, that is coming towards us; for we shall soon let go that which we hold, but for fashion sake, which we fight against, when we defend it, and tread under foot, even then, when we exalt it: which hath no more credit with us, than what our Parents, our Education, the voice of the People, and the multitude of professors have even forced upon us? If the Truth have no more Power over us, if we have no more love for the Truth, but this, which hath nothing but the name of Love, but is indeed the contrary; if we bless it with our Tongue, and fight against it with our Lusts, at once embrace and stifle it, than those sensual Lusts, which in time of Peace did detain, and keep it under, will be the same, and show themselves again in Time of Persecution, and be as forcible to deter us from those Evils, which are so, but in show and appearance, as they were before to plunge us in those of sin, which were true and real; If we love not the truth, we are Ismaels', and not isaac's.  
Every unclean Beast is not fit to make a Sacrifice, nor the hairy scalp of him that goes on in his sins fit for the Crown of Martyrdom; for how shall he, who draws out his life in Open Hostility to Christ, and trifles with him, and contemns him all his Days, suffer or die for him before Repentance, and Reconciliation, which is indeed in the very Act of Hostility? shall we seek for Heaven in Hell? or shall we seek for witnesses to the Truth amongst a Generation of Vipers? Can he who all his life long hath cast Christ's words behind him, seal to them with his blood, that they are true? Can the Conscience, so beaten, so wasted, so overwhelmed with the Habits of sin, upon the sudden take in, and entertain a Fear of so little a sin, as the denial of one Truth is, in respect of all? Can Ishmael, in the twinkling of an Eye, be made an Isaac? I will not say, It is Impossible, but it carries but little show of probability; and if it be ever done, it is not to be brought in censum ordinariorum, nor falls out in the Ordinary course that is set, and is to be looked upon as a Miracle, which is not wrought every day, but at certain times, and upon some important occasion, and to some especial end; for it is very rare and unusual, that conscience should be quiet and silent so long, and then on the sudden, be as the mighty voice of God; That it should lie hid so long, and then come forth, and work a miracle; drive us to the confession of some one truth, which had no power to hold us from polluting ourselves with so many sins. Keep faith, 
1 Tim. 1.19.  saith Saint Paul, and a good conscience, which some having put away concerning faith have made shipwreck; for so near an alliance there is between faith and a good conscience, that we must either keep them both, or lose them both, faith being (as Saint Paul intimates), as the ship, and an undefiled conscience as the rudder, if you strike off the rudder, or let it go, the Ship will soon dash upon the rocks, and faith will be lost in the waves and floods of this present world.  
If then thou wilt stand up against Israel, be sure to be an Isaac, a child of promise, and an heir to the faith of Abraham, if thou wilt be secure from the flesh, be renewed in the spirit, if thou wilt be fit to take up the cross, first crucify thyself, thy lusts, and affections, if thou wilt be prepared against persecution, first raise one in thy own breast, smother every idle thought, silence every loud desire, check and correct thy wanton sancy, beat down every thing, that stands in opposition to the truth; Be thus dead unto thyself; and then neither death nor life, neither fear of death, nor hope of life shall be ever able to separate thee from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus. This is all the preparation that is required, which every one, that is born after the spirit doth make, and there needs no more; for he that is thus fitted to follow Christ in the regeneration, against the Ismaelites of this world, is well qualified, and will not be afraid to meet him in the clouds and in the air, when he shall come in terror, to judge both the quick and the dead.  

Conclus.  And now to conclude: what says the Scripture? Cast out the bondwoman, and her son, for the son of the bondwoman shall not inherit with the son of the freewoman. 'Tis true, Ishmael was cast out into the wilderness of Beersheba, 
Gen. 21.14.  and the jew is cast out, ejectus saith Tert. coeli et soli extorris, cast out of Jerusalem, scattered and dispersed over the face of the earth, and made a proverb of obstinate impiety, 
Tertul adv. Judaeos. c. 13. Apolog. 21.  so that when we call a man a Jew, putamus sufficere convitium, we think we have railed loud enough. But now, how shall the Church cast out those of her own bowels, of her house and family? (for such enemies she may have, which hang upon her breasts; called by the same word, sealed with the same Sacraments, and challenging a part in the same common salvation.) To cast out is an act of violence, and the true Church evermore hath the suffering part; but yet she may cast them out, and that with violence; but then, it is with the same violence we take the kingdom of Heaven, a violence upon ourselves. 1. By laying ourselves prostrate, by the vehemency of our devotion, by our frequent prayers, that God would either melt their hearts, or shorten their hands, either bring them into the right way, or strike off their chariot wheels; for this kind of spirit, these malignant spirits cannot be cast out, but by prayer and fasting, which is energetical, and prevalent 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, saith Euseb. a most invincible and irresistible Thing, placing us under the wing of God, far above all principalities and powers, above all the flatteries and terrors of the world, there with Steven pleading for Saul the persecutor, till he become Paul the Apostle, which is in effect to cast out the persecution itself.  
Secondly, by our patience and long suffering: For patience worketh more miracles than power; it giveth us those goods, which our enemies take from us, it makes dishonour glorious, it dulleth the edge of the sword, it cooleth the flames of fire, it wearieth cruelty, shames the Devil, and like a wise Captain turns the Ordnance, upon the face of the enemy. 
Rom. 5.3.  Patience is the proper effect of faith (for if we believe him who hath told us our condition, what will we not suffer for his sake?) and it is omnipotent, 
Philip. 4.13.  by the virtue of which Saint Paul professes, he could do and suffer all things. It may seem strange indeed, that a mortal, frail man should be omnipotent, and do all things, yet it is most evidently true; so true that we cannot deny it, unless we deny the faith; for if the eye of our faith were as clear, as the reward is Glorious, it would neither dazzle at the smile and beauty of a flattering, nor at the terror of a black temptation; but pleasure would be vanity, and persecution a crown. So that you see, to sit still and do nothing, to possess our souls with patience, and to suffer all things; is to cast them out.  
3. By our innocency of life, and sincerity of conversation; and thus we shall not only cast them out, but persecute them, as righteous Lot did the men of Sodom; this is to keep ourselves to mount Zion, to that Jerusalem, which is above, to defend our priority, our primogeniture, our Inheritance, this is to be born after the spirit. 
Hom. 8.10.  There is saith Austa Just. persecutio, there is a just and praiseworthy persecution; for Isaac to be Heir, was a persecution to Ishmael; for the Church to be built upon the foundation of the Apostles, Christ being the head corner stone, was a persecution to the Jews: for no sooner had Paul mentioned his sending to the Gentiles, but they fling off their , and fling dust in the air, and cry, 
Acts 22.23. Judaeorum Synagogae fontes persecutionum. Tertul. Scorp. c. 10.  Away with such a fellow from the Earth, and nothing more odious to a Jew, to this Day, than a Christian. The holy and strict conversation of the just, is a persecution to the wicked; castigat, qui dissentit, he that walks not by our Rule, 
Wisd. 2.12.  but draws out his Religion by another, is as a Thorn in our eyes, and a whip in our sides, and doth not instruct, but control and punish us: Do they not speak it in plain words, Contrarius est, he is contrary to our Do, it grieves, and vexes us to look upon him; He will not dig with us in the Mine for Wealth, he will not wallow with us in Pleasure, nor climb with us to Honour, he will not cast in his Lot with us to help to advance our purposes to their End. And let us thus persecute them with our Silence, with our Patience, with our Innocency, even persecute those Ismaelites, no other way but this, by being Isaac's.  
The fourth and last.  
Lastly, 
Psal. 55.22.  we may cast them out by Casting our Burden on the Lord, by putting our cause into his Hands, who best can plead it, by citing our Persecuters before his Tribunal, who is the Righteous Judge. If we thus cast it upon him, we need no other Umpire, no other Revenger: If it be a loss, he can restore it, if an injury, he can return it; if grief, he can heal it; if disgrace, he can wipe it off, and will certainly do it, if we so cast it upon him, as to trust in him alone; the full persuasion of God's Power being that, which awaketh him as one out of sleep, puts him to clothe himself with his Majesty, sets his power a working, to bring mighty Things to pass, and make himself Glorious by the delivery of his People.  

Conclus.  To shut up all and Conclude: Thus if we cast our burden upon him, thus if we look up to the Hills from whence cometh our Salvation, 
Luk. 21.28.  we shall also 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Look up, and lift up our Heads, behave ourselves, as if all Things did go, as we would have them, look up and lift up our Heads, as herbs peep out of the Earth, when the Sun comes near them, and Birds sing when the Spring is near, so look up, as if our Redemption, our Spring were near.  
Thus if we Importune Him by our Prayers, wait on Him by our Patience, walk before him, when the Tempest is loudest, in the sincerity and uprightness of our Hearts, and put our Cause into his Hands, if there be any Ishmael, to persecute us, any Enemies to trouble us; he will cast them out, either so melt and transform them, that they shall not trouble us, or if they do, they shall rather advantage them, then Hurt us, rather improve our Devotion, then cool, and abate it, rather increase our Patience, then weaken it, raise our Sincerity, rather than sink it, rather settle and confirm our Confidence, then shake it, in a word, shall so cast them out, as to teach us to do it, that we may so use them, as we are Taught to use the unrighteous Mammon, to cast them out by making them Friends, even such Friends, as may receive us into Everlasting Habitations, which God Grant for His Son JESUS CHRIST'S sake, etc.   

THE FOURTEENTH SERMON.  MATTH. 24.42. 
Watch therefore; For you know not what hour your Lord doth come.  

I. PART.  
WHich words, are the words of our Blessed Saviour, and a part of that Answer, which he returned to that Question, which was put up by his Disciples, ver. 3. Tell us, When shall these things be, and what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world? Where, we may observe, that he doth not satisfy their Curiosity, which was measuring of Time, even to the last point, and moment of it, when it shall be no more, but resolves them in that, which was fit for them to know, and passeth by in silence, and untouched, the other as a thing laid up, and reserved in the Bosom of his Father. The Time he tells them not, but foretells those Fearful signs, which should be the Fore runners of the Destruction of Jerusalem, and the ends of the world; which two are so interweaved in the Prediction, that Interpreters scarce know how to distinguish them.  
We need not take any pains to disentangle, or put them asunder: At the 30. v. he presents himself in the Clouds with Power and Glory, the Angels sound the Trumpet at the next; the two men in the Field and the two women grinding at the Mill in the Verses immediately going before my Text, the one taken, the other lest, are a fair Evidence, and seem to point out to the end of the world; which will be a time of discrimination, of separating the Goats from the sheep. And then these words will concern us as much as the Apostles; In which he who is our Lord and King to Rule and Govern us, He that was and that is, 
Revel. 1.4.  and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, He that is to come, tells us of his coming opens his will, and manifests his Power, and (as he hath given us Laws) tells us, he will come to require them at our bands; He that is the Wisdom of his Father, he that neither slumbers nor sleeps, calls upon us, makes this stir and noise about us, and the Alarm is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Be watchful. Call it what we please, an Admonition, or an Exhortation, it hath the necessitating and compulsive force of a Law, and Christ is his own Herald, and proclaims it, as it were, by the sound of the Trumpet for this vigilate ergo, watch, Therefore is tuba ante Tuham, is as a Trumpet before the last, and thus it sounds. To you it is commanded, to fling yourselves off from the bed of security, to set a Court of Guard upon yourselves, to rouse up yourselves, to stand as it were on a Watch-Tower, looking for, and expecting the coming of the Lord. I may call it a Law, but it is not as the Laws of men, which are many times the result of men's wills; which are guided and determined by their Lusts and Affections: and so Ambition makes Laws, and Covetousness makes Laws, and private Interest makes Laws, with this false Inscription, Bono publico, For the Public Good; but it is prefaced, and ushered in, with Reason, which concerns, not so much the Head, as the Members, not the Lord, as his Servants, not the King, as his Subjects, for us men, and for our salvation, For him that is in the Field, and him that is in the House; For him that sitteth on the Throne, and the woman that Grinds at the Mill: for the whole Church, is the warning given, This Law promulged and every word is a Reason. 1. That he is our Lord, that is to come. 2ly. That he will come. 3ly. That the time of his coming is uncertain: A Lord to seal and ratify his Laws with our blood, which we would not subscribe too, nor make good by our Obedience; and a Lord, gone as it were into a fare Country, and leaving us to Traffic, till he come, but after a while to come, and reckon with us; and last of all: at an uncertain time, at an Hour we know not, That every hour may be unto us, as the hour of his coming; for he that prefixes no Hour: may come the next: every one of these is a Reason strong enough to enforce this Conclusion, Vigilate ergo: Watch therefore. A Lord he is, and shall we not fear him? To come, and shall we not expect him? To come at an hour, we know not, and shall we not watch? these are the premises; and the conclusion is Logically, and formally deduced, primae necessitatis the most necessary conclusion, that a servant, or subject can draw: so that in these words, we have these things considerable. First, the person coming: Dominus vester, your Lord; Secondly, his Advent, veniet: he will come. Thirdly, the uncertainty of that hour; we know not when it will be; out of which will naturally follow this conclusion, which may startle and awake us out of sleep; vigilate ergo: watch therefore.  
Watch therefore, for you know not the Hour etc.  
We will follow that method which we have laid down, and begin with the premises; and first, it will concern us to look upon the person, for as the person is, such is our expectation, and could we take the Idea of him in our hearts, and behold him in the full compass, and extent of his power, we should unfold our arms and look about us, veternum excutere, shake off our sloth and drowsiness, and prepare for his coming; for it is Christ our lord Ask of me, and I shall give thee the Heathen for thine inheritance Psal. 2. saith God to Christ, and Christ says, 
John 10.30.  I and the Father are one, we believe that he shall Judge the world; and we read that the Father hath committed this Judgement to the Son; 
John. 5.22.  take him as God, or take him as man, he is our Lord; Cum Dominus dicitur, unus agnoscitur, for there is but one faith, and but one Lord; so that Christ may well say, you call me Lord and Master, 
1. Cor. 6.20. Colos. 2.15.  and so I am; a Lord as in many other respects, so jure Redemptionis by the redemption, having bought us with a price, and so jure belli by way of Conquest, by treading our enemies under our feet, and taking us out of slavery, and bondage.  
And that we may not think, that Christ laid down his power with his life; or that he is gone from us, never to come again; we will a little consider the nature of his Dominion, and behold him there, from whence he must come to judge the quick and the dead, and the Prophet David hath pointed out to him sitting at the right hand of God, where we should ever behold him, 
Psal. 110.1.  and fix our thoughts, our eye of faith upon him, in this our watch. The Lord said unto my Lord, sit thou at my right hand, 
Psal. 110.  till I make thy enemies thy footstool; which speech is Metaphorical, and we cannot draw it to any other sense, then that on which the intent of the speaker did level it, which reached no further than this, to show that his own kingdom was nothing in comparison of Christ's, which was of another, 
Non exparabolis materias comment mur, sed exmaterijs parabolas interpretamur. Tert. de puducir. c. 8.  and higher nature; as Tertul. spoke of parables; we do not draw conclusions, and Doctrines out of Metaphors, but we expound the Metaphor, by the Doctrine which is taught, and the scope of the teacher, nor must we admit of any interpretation, which notwithstanding the Metaphor might yield, which is not consonant, and agreeable to the Doctrine, and analogy of faith, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith the Philosopher, we can neither bring a Metaphor into a definition, nor can we build an argument upon it; we may say of Metaphors, as Christ spoke of the voice from heaven, they are used in Scripture for our sakes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, 
Arist. 5. Top. c 2.  for likeness, and proportions sake, and serve to present Intellectual objects to the eye, and make that light, which we have of things familiar to us, a help and medium, by which we may more clearly see those which are removed, and stand at greater distance. For he cannot be said to sit there, at the right hand of God, from the position, and site of his body; we cannot entertain so gross an Imagination; and Saint Stephen tells us, 
Acts. 7.  he saw him standing at the right hand of God; but it may declare his victory, his triumph and rest, as it were from his labour, secundum consuetudinem nostram illi consessus offertur, qui victor adveniens Honoris gratia promeretur, ut sedeat, it is borrowed saith Saint Ambrose, from our customary speech, by which we offer him a place, and seat for honour's sake, who hath done some notable and meritorious service, and so Christ having spoiled the adversary by his death, having lead captivity captive, and put the Prince of Darkness in chains at his return with these spoils, hears from his Father, Sede ad dextram, sit now down at my right hand. Nor doth his right hand point out to any fixed or determined place, where he sits; For Christ himself tells the high Priest, That they shall see the Son of man sitting at the right hand of God, 
Mar● 14.12.  and coming in the clouds of heaven, which if it be literally understood, we must needs conceive him coming and sitting at the same time. All agree it is a Metaphor, and some interpret it of that supremacy he hath above the Creature, for so he is described sitting at the right hand of God in Heavenly places, 
Eph. 1.20,21.  far above all principalities and powers, and every name that is named not only in this world, but in the World to come. Some have conceived, that by this honour of sitting at the right hand of God, not only an equality with God is employed, but something more; 
Equal to the Father as touching his Godhead. Ath. Cr.  not that the Son hath any thing more than the Father, for they are equal in all things, but because in respect of the exercise, and execution of his royal office, he hath as it were this dignity to sit in his royal seat, as Lord and Governor of his Church, for the Father is said, as I told you, to commit all judgement to the Son; 
Tertul de pudicit c. 9  But we may say with Tertul. malo in scriptures forte minus sapere, quam contra, we had rather understand less in Scripture, than amiss, rather be wary then venture too far, and wade till we sink; and that will prove the best interpretation of Scripture, which we draw out of Scripture itself; and then Saint Paul hath interpreted it to our hands; for where as the Prophet David Tells us, the Lord said unto my Lord, sit thou at my right hand, the Apostle speaks more expressly; Oportet eum regnare, 
1 Cor. 15.  he must reign, till he hath put down all his enemies under his feet; 
Heb. 8.1.  and in the Epistle to the Hebrews, we have such an high Priest that sits at the right hand of the throne of the majesty in the Heavens; that is, we have such an high Priest, which is also a Lord, and king of Majesty, and power to command, and govern us, who hath absolute authority over things in Heaven, and things in earth, over all the souls, and bodies of men, and may prescribe them Laws; reward the obedient and punish offenders either in this world, or the next, or in both; for though he were a Lord and King even in his cratch, and on his cross; yet now his Dominion, and kingly power was most manifest, and he commands his Disciples to publish the Gospel of peace, and those precepts of Christian conversation to all the World, and speaks not as a Prophet but as a Prince, in his own name; enjoins Repentance, and amendment of life, to all the Nations of the earth, which were now all under his Dominion. Thus saith Christ himself, it is written, and thus it behoved him to suffer and to rise again, that Repentance and remission of sin, 
Luk. 24.47.  might be preached 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in his name, among all Nations: and his Dominion is not subordinate, but absolute; he commands not as the Centurion in the Gospel, who had divers under him, yet himself was under authority; but as Solomon's King, he is Rex Alkum a King, against whom there is no rising up.  
And now that it may appear, that he is not for ever, thus to sit at the right hand of God, but there sits to rule, and govern us, to behold, and observe us in every motion, and in every thought and will, nay, must come again, either with a reward for those who bow to his Sceptre, or vengeance to be poured forth upon their heads, who contemn his laws, and think neither of him, nor the right hand of God, and will not have him reign over them, though they call him their king; Let us a little further consider the Nature and quality of his Dominon, that our fear, and reverence, our care and caution may draw him yet a little nearer to us, and we may conceive of him, as not only sitting at the right hand of God, but so live as if he were now coming in the clouds. Tell the daughter of Zion, behold thy king coming to thee, meek, on a colt, 
Math. 2.51.  the foal of an Ass, this was his first coming in great humility, and this and his retinue, that his Kingdom was not of this world. 
Philip. 2.8,9.  He humbled himself, saith Saint Paul, wherefore God hath highly exalted him, and given him a name, which is above every name; given him power, dignity, and honour, and made him our Lord and King. For his Prophetical office which he exercised in the land of Judea, was in a manner and act, and effect of his kingly Office, by which he sits as Lord in the Throne of Majesty, for by it he declared his Father's will, and promulged his Laws throughout the world: as a king and Lord he makes his Laws, and as a Prophet he published them; a Prophet, and a Priest, and a Lord for ever: For he teacheth his Church, he mediates and intercedes for his Church, and Governs his Church to the end of the world. Take then the Laws by which he Governs us; the virtue, and power, the compass and duration of his Dominon, and we shall find it to be of a higher, and more excellent Nature, then that which the eye of flesh so dazzles at; that he is, The Lord of lords, and King of kings.  
And first, the difference between his Dominion, and the Kingdoms of the world is seen not only in the Authors, but the Laws themselves; for the Laws of men are enacted many times nec quid, nec quare, and no reason can be given why they are enacted, good reason there is why there should be Laws made against them, and they abolished; some written in blood, too rigid and cruel, some in water ready to vanish, many of them but the results and dictates of men's lusts, and wild affections, made not to safeguard any State, but their own. But his are pure and undefiled, exact, and perfect, such as tend to perfection, to the good of his Subjects, and will make them like unto this Lord, heirs together with him of eternity of bliss, and as the reward is eternal, so are they unchangeable, the same to day, and to the end of the world, not like the Laws of the Heathen, which were raised with one breath, and pulled down by another, which were fixed by one hand, and torn down by a second Licurgi leges emendatae, saith Tert. Lycurgus' his Laws were so imperfect, so ill fitting the Commonwealth, that they were brought under the hammer and the file, to be beat out and fashioned in another form more proportionable to that body for which they were made, 
Tert. Apol. c. 4.  were corrected by the Lacedæmonians, which undervaluing of his wisdom did so unman him, that he would be a man no longer, but starved himself to death, Vetus et squallens sylva legum edictorum securibus Truncata, the whole wood of the old Laws now sullied and weakened with age were cut down by the edicts and rescripts of after Emperors at the very root as with an axe; all of them are in the body of time, and worn out with it, either fail of themselves, or else are cast aside; humane Laws being but as shadows cast from men in power, and when they fall to the ground, lost with them, no more to be seen, nec uno statu consistunt, sed ut coeli facies et maris, ità rerum, et fortunae tempestatibus variantur, 
Gel. Noct. Att. l. 20.  nor do they remain in one state, but altar as the face of the Heavens and the Sea, now smile, anon frown, now a calm, and by and by a tempest; now the strong man says, do this, anon a stronger than he comes, and I forfeit my head if I do it; they are too oft written with the point of the sword, and then the character follows the hand that bears it. Thus it is with the Laws of men, but the Laws of this our Lord and Lawgiver can no more change, than he that made them; no bribe can buy out their power, no dispensations wound them, no power can disannul them, 
Dispensationes vulnera legum.  but they are the same, and of the same countenance, they moult not a feather, they altar not in one circumstance, but direct the Obedient, and stare the offender in the face, and by the power of this Lord kindle a Hell in him in this life, and will appear at the great day, to accuse him; for we either stand or fall in judgement according to these Laws; in a word, humane Laws are made for certain Climates, and fitted to the complexion and temper of certain Commonwealths, but these for the whole world: Rome, and Britanny, and Jerusalem, all places are bound alike, and as his Dominion, so his Laws reach from one end of the earth to another, and these which he published at the first, are not only Laws, but promises and pledges of his second coming, for he made them not for nought, but hath left them with us, till he come again in Glory to judge both the quick and the dead, according to his Gospel.  
Besides the Laws of men are too narrow, and cannot reach the whole Body of sin, cannot comprehend all, not the inward man, 
Leges non omnia comprehendunt, non omnia vetant, nec absolvunt. Sen. 3. de Benef. c. 6.  the thoughts, and surmises of the heart, no not every visible act, they forbidden not all, they absolve not all; some irregularities there be, which these Laws look not upon, nor have they any other punishment, than the common hatred of men who can pass no other sentence upon them, than this; that they dislike them, and we are forced to leave them to the censure and anger of the highest, saith Seneca; Quoties licet non opertet; Every thing that is lawful for me to do, is not fit to be done, and his integrity is but lame, that walks on at pleasure, and knows no bounds, but those which the Laws of men have set up, and never questions any thing he doth, till he meets with a check, is honest no further than this, that he fears not a Prison, nor the Gibbet; is honest, because he deserves not to be hanged. How many are there who are called Christians, who yet have not made good their title to that honour, which we give to a just man? How many count themselves just men, yet do those things, which themselves, if they would be themselves, would condenm as most unjust, and do so, when others do them? and how many have carried so much honesty with them into hell? the Law, of men cannot reach home to carry us to that height of innocency, to which on other Law but that within us, might lift us up; but the Laws of this Lord, like his power and providence, reach and comprehend all, the very looks, and proffers, and thoughts of the mind, which no man sees, which we see not ourselves, which though they break not the peace, nor shake any pillar of a commonwealth (for a thought troubles no heart, but that which conceives it) yet it stands in opposition to that policy which this our Lord hath drawn out, and to that end, for which he is our Lord, and is louder in his ears, than an evil word in ours, and therefore he looks not only on our outward guilt but the conscience itself; and pierceth to the dividing asunder of the soul and the spirit, regulates the very thoughts and intents of the heart, which he looks upon, not as fading and vanishing characters in the soul, but as kill letters imprinted and engraven there, as S. Basil speaks, as full and complete actions wrought out in the inward man (Saint Bernard calls them passivas actiones passive actions) which he will Judge secundum evangelium, 
Bas de virg. Bern. 159.  according to these Laws which he hath published in his Gospel.  
Secondly, that he is a Lord appears by the virtue, and power of his dominion; for whereas all the power on earth (which so often dazzles us) can but afflict the body, this wounds the soul, rips up the very heart, and bowels, and when those Lords, (which we so tremble at, till we fall from him) can but kill the body; This Lord can cast both soul and body into Hell; nay, can make us a Hell unto ourselves, make us punish and torment ourselves, and being greater than our conscience can multiply those strokes. Humane laws have been brought into disgrace, because they had not power enough to attend and hold them up, and even the common people, who fear them most, have by their own observation gathered the boldness to call them cobwebs; for they see, he that hath a full purse, or a good sword will soon break through them, or find a besom to sweep them away. What speak you of the Laws? I can have them, and bind them up in sudariolo, saith Damianus, in the corner of my Handkerchief, nay, many times for want of power victae leges the Laws must submit as in conquest, and though they have a tongue to speak, yet they have not a hand to strike. And as it is in punishment, so it is sometimes in point of reward; men may raise their mer it & deserts so high, that the Exchequer itself shall not find a reward to equal them. We have a story in our own Chronicles, of a Nobleman, who did such service for his friend, then but a private man, that he made him first a Conqueror, than a king: the Historian gives this note, that kings love not to be too much beholding to their Subjects, nor to have greater service done, than they are able to reward, and so (how truly I know not) makes the setting on of the Crown on his friend's head one cause of the losing of his own. But it is not so with this our Lord, who being now in his throne of Majesty, cannot be outdared by any sin, be it never so great, never so common, and can break the hairy scalp of the most Giantlike offender, and shiver in pieces the tallest Cedar in Libanus. Who shall be able to stand up in his sight? In his presence the boldest sinner shall tremble and fall down, and see the Horror of that profitable, Honourable sin, in which he Triumphed, and called it Godliness; The Hypocrite, whose every word, whose every motion, whose every look was a lie, shall be unmasked, and the man of Power, who boasted in malice, and made his will a Law, and hung his Sword on his will, to make way to that, at which it was levelled, shall be beat down into the lowest pit, to Howl with those, who measured out Justice by their Sword, and thought every thing theirs, which that could give them; Before him Every sin shall be a sin, and the wages thereof shall be Death.  
Again, he hath rewards, and his Treasury is full of them; Not only a Cup of cold water, but the pouring forth my blood as water for the Truth's sake, shall have its full and overflowing Recompense, nor shall there ever any be able to say, what profit is it that we have kept his Laws? No, saith Saint Paul, Non sunt condignae, 
Mal. 2.14. Rom. 8.8.  put our passions to our Actions, our Sufferings to our Alms, our Martyrdom to our Prayers, they are not worthy the naming in comparison of that weight of Glory, which our Lord now sitting at the right Hand of God, hath prepared for them that fear him: Nec quisquam à regno ejus subtrahitur, nor can any go out of his reach, or stand before him, when he is angry: He that sits on the Throne, and he that grinds at the Mill, to him are both alike.  

3.  And now in the third place; That every knee may bow, and every Tongue confess him to be the Lord; Let us a little take notice of the large compass, and Circuit of his Dominion, and the Psalmist will tell us, That he shall have Dominion from the Sea, to the Sea, and from the River, unto the ends of the world. Adam, the first man, and he that shall stand last upon the Earth; Every man is his subject. For he hath set him, saith Saint Paul, at his right hand, in heavenly places, and hath put all things under his Feet, and gave him to be Head over all Things to his Church, and what a thin shadow? what a Nothing is all the overspreading power of this world to this? All other Dominion hath its bounds and limits, which it cannot pass, but by violence and the sword, nor is it expedient for the world to have one King, nor for the Church to have one Universal Bishop, or, as they speak, one visible Head. For as a ship may be made up to that bulk, that it cannot be managed; so the number of men, and distance of place may be so great, that it cannot subsist under one Government. Thus it falls out in the world, but it is not so in the Kingdom of this our Lord; No place so distant or remote, to which this Power cannot reach, Lybiam remotis Gadibus Jungit, all places are to him alike, and he sees them all at once. It is called the Catholic Church, and in our Creed we profess we believe Sanctam Catholicam Ecclesiam, the holy Catholic CHURCH; That is, That, that Church, which was shut up within the narrow confines of Judea, now under the Gospel is as large as the world itself; The Invitation is, to all, and all may come; They may come, who are yet without, and they might have come, who are bound hand and foot, and cannot come; The Gate was once open to them, but now 'tis shut. Persa, Gothus, Judus Philosophantur, saith Saint Hierom, the Persian and the Goth and the Indian, and Egyptian are subjects under this Lord; Barbarism itself bows before him, and hath changed her Harsh notes, into the sweet melody of the Cross; There was dew only upon the Fleece; the people of the Jews; but now that fleece is dry, and there is dew upon all the earth. The Gospel saith our Saviour, must be Preached to all Nations, and when the Holy Ghost descended to seal and confirm the Laws of this Lord, 
Act. 2,6.  there were present at this great sealing, or Confirmation, some (saith the Text) of all Nations under Heaven, that did hear 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the wonderful things of God, every one in his own language, so that the Gospel might seem to have been Preached throughout the world, before the Apostles did stir a foot from Jerusalem. But here we may observe, that Christ, who hath jus ad omnem terram, hath not, in strictness of speech; jus in omni Terrâ, The right and propriety is his for ever, but he doth not take possession of it all at once, but successively, and by parts: It is as easy for him to illuminate all the world at once, as the least nook and corner of it, but this Son of Righteousness spreads his beams gloriously, 
Joh. 11.1.  but is not seen of all, because of the Interposition of men's sins, who exclude themselves from the Beams thereof; This true light came into the world, but the world received him not; but yet what our sensuality will not suffer him to do at once, he doth by degrees, and passeth on, and gaineth ground, That so successively he may be seen, and known of all the world.  
But suppose men shook off their Allegiance (as too many, the greatest part of the world, the greatest part of Christendom do) suppose there were none found that will bow before him (which will never be) suppose they Crucify him again? yet is he still our King, and our Lord, the King and Lord of all the world: such an universal falling a way, and forsaking him, would not take away from him his Dominion, nor remove him from the right hand of God, and strip him of his Power; If all the world were Infidels, yet he were a Lord still, and his Power as large and irresistible as ever. For his Royalty depends not on the Duty, and fidelity of his subjects; if it did, his Dominion would be indeed but of a very narrow Compass, the sheep not so many as the Goats, his flock but little: Indeed he could have no right at all, if it could be taken from him; Neither deceit, nor violence can take away a right, no man can lose his right till he forfeit it; which was impossible for this supreme Lord to do; All the Contradictions of all the men in the world cannot weaken his Title, or contract his Power; If all should forsake him, if all should send this Message to him, Nolumus hunc regnare, 
Luk. 19.14.  we will not have thee Reign over us; yet in all this scorn and contempt, in this open Rebellion and Contradiction of sinners he is still the Lord, and as he favours those subjects, who come in willingly, whom he guides with his staff; so he hath a rod of Iron to bruise his Enemies, and this Lord shall command, and at his command, his servants, and Executioners shall take those his Enemies, who would not have him reign over them, and slay them before his face; He will not use his Power, to force and drag them by violence to his service, but if they refuse his help, abuse the means which he offers them, and turn his grace into wantonness, then will he show himself a King, and his anger will be more terrible than the roaring of a Lion; They shall feel him to be a Lord, when 'twill be too late to call him so; when they shall weep and curse, and gnash with their teeth, and Howle under that Power, which might have saved them, for the same Power opens the gates of heaven, and of Hell: In his hand is a Cup, saith the Psalmist, 
Psal. 75.8.  and in his hand is a reward, and when he comes to Judge, he brings them both along with him: the same Power brings Life and Death, as Fabius did Peace or War to the Carthagenians in the lap of his Garment, and which he will, he pours out upon us, and in both is still our Lord; when faith fails, and Charity waxeth cold, and the world is set on wickedness, when there be more Antichrists than Christians, he is our Lord, yesterday and to day, and the same for ever. 
Heb. 13.8.   

4  And in the last place; as the Dominion of our Lord is the largest that ever was; so is most lasting, and shall never be destroyed, and shall break to pieces, and destroy all the Kingdoms of the Earth, but itself shall stand fast for ever; no violence shall shake it; 
Dan. 2.44.  no craft shall undermine it, no Time waste it; but Christ shall remain our Lord for ever. The Apostle indeed speaks of an end, of delivering up his Kingdom, and of Subjection. 'Tis true, there shall be an end; 
1 Cor. 15.24.  but 'tis, when he hath delivered up his Kingdom; and he shall deliver up his Kingdom, but not till he hath put down all Authority; Finis hic defectio non est, nec Traditio Amissio, nec subjectio infirmitas, saith Hilary, This end is no failing; This delivery no loss, this Subjection is no weakness nor Infirmity Regnum Regnans tradet; He shall deliver up his Power, and yet be still a Lord. Take Nazianzens Interpretation and then this subjection is nothing else, but the fulfilling of his Father's will; 
Orat. 36.  〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith he in his 36. Oration, which he made against the Arrians: Take others, and by Christ, is meant, his Church, which in Computation, is but one Person with Christ, and when His Church is perfected, then doth he deliver up his Power and Dominion. But let us but observe the manner of the ending of this Kingdom, and the Failing, and Period of others, and we shall gain light enough to guide us in the midst of all these doubts and difficulties: For other Kingdoms are undermined by craft, and shaken by the madness of the People, who eat the whip, and are beaten with Scorpions, cast off one yoke, and put on a heavier (as the young men in Livy complained) either Kingdoms are changed and altered, as it pleaseth those, who are victorious, whose right hand is their God; but the Power of this Lord is then, and only in this sense said to have an end; when, indeed, it is in its 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, and perfection, when there will be no enemy stirring to subdue, no use of Laws; when the Subjects are now made perfect, when this Lord shall make his subjects Kings, and Crown them with Glory and Honour for ever. Here's no weakness, no Infirmity, no abjuration, no resignation of the Crown, and Power, but all things are at an end, his enemies in Chains, and his subjects free; free from the fear of Hell, or Temptations of the Devil, the World, or the flesh, and though there be an end, yet he reigns still, though he be subject, yet he is as high as ever he was; Though he hath delivered up his Kingdom, yet he hath not lost it, but remains a Lord, and King for Evermore.  
And now you have seen this Lord, that is to come, you have seen him sitting at the right hand of God; His right and Power of Government, his Laws just and Holy, and wise; the virtue and Power, the largeness, and the duration of his Government, a sight fit for those to look on, who love, and look for the coming of this Lord, for they that long to meet him in the Clouds, cannot but delight to behold him at the right Hand of God? Look upon him then sitting in Majesty, and Power, and think you now saw him moving towards you, and were now descending with a shout; for his very sitting there should be to us as his coming; it being but the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the preparation to that great Day. Look upon him, and think not, that he there sits Idle, but beholds the Children of men, those that wait for him and those that Think not of him, and he will come down with a shout, not fall as a Timber-logge, for every Frogg, every wanton sinner to leap upon, and croak about, but come as a Lord, with a Reward in one hand, and a Vengeance in the other; Oh 'tis fare better to fall down, and worship him now, than not to know him to be a Lord, till that time, that in his wrath he shall manifest his Power, and fall upon us, and break us in pieces. Look then upon this Lord, and look upon his Laws, and write them in your hearts;; for the Philosopher will tell us, that the strength and perfection of Law, consists, not only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, in the wise, and discreet framing of them, but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, in the right, and due performance of them; for obedience is the best seal and Ratification of a Law. He is Lord from all eternity, and cannot be divested of his royal office, yet he counts his kingdom most complete, when we are subject, and obedient unto him, when he hath taken possession of our hearts, where he may walk (not as he did in Paradise terrible to Adam, who had forfeited his allegiance) but as in a garden of pleasures, to delight himself with the sons of men. Behold he commands, threatens, beseeches, calls upon us again, and again; and the beseechings of Lords are commands, preces armatae armed prayers, backed with power; and therefore next consider the virtue and power of his dominion, and bow before him, do what he commands with fear and trembling; let this power walk along with thee in all thy ways, when thou art giving an alms, let it strike the trumpet out of thy hand, when thou fastest, let it be in capite jejunii, let it begin, and end it, when thou art struggling with a tentation: let it drive thee on, that thou faint not, and fall back, and do the work of the Lord negligently; 
Jer. 48.10.  when thou art adding virtue to virtue, let it be before they eyes, that thou mayest double thy diligence, and make it up complete in every circumstance: and when thou thinkest of evil, let it join with that thought, that thou mayest hate the very appearance of it, and chase it away? why should dust & ashes more awe thee, than Omnipotency? why should thy eye be stronger than thy faith? not only the frown, but the look of thy Superior composeth, and models thee, puts thee into any fashion, or form; thou wilt go, or run, or sit down, thou wilt venture thy body, (would that were all) nay, thou wilt venture thy soul, do any thing, be any thing what his beck doth but intimate; but thy faith is fearless; as bold, as blind, and will venture on, on the point of the sword, fears what man; not what this Lord can do to him; fears him more that sits on the bench, than him that sits at the right hand of God; If we did believe as we profess, we could not but more lay it to our hearts, even lay it so, as to break them; for who can stand up when he is angry? & let us next view the largeness and compass of his Dominion, which takes in all that will come, and reacheth those, who refuse to come, and is not contracted in its compass, if none should come; and why shouldest thou turn a Saviour into a destroyer? why shouldst thou die in thy Physician's arms, with thy cordials about thee? why shouldest thou behold him as a Lord, till he be angry? he caleth all, inviteth all that come, why should Publicans and sinners enter, and thy disobedience shut thee out? Lastly, consider the duration of his Dominion, which shall not end, but with the world, nor end then, when it doth end, for the virtue of it shall reach to all eternity; and then think, that under this Lord thou must either be eternally happy, or eternally miserable, and let not a flattering, but a fading world, thy rebellious and traitorous flesh, let not the father of lies, a gilded temptation, an apparition, a vain shadow thrust thee on his left hand: for both at his right and left, there is power, which works to all eternity.  

The second, his Advent or coming. Venit, he will come.  And now we have walked about this Zion, and told the towers thereof, shown you Christ's territories and Dominion; the nature, of his laws, the virtue and power, the largeness and compass, the duration of his kingdom, we must in the next place consider his Advent, his coming, consider him as now coming; for we cannot imagine (as was said before) that he sat there idle like Epicurus his God, nec sibi facessens negotium nec alteri, not regarding what is done below, but like true Prometheus, governing, and disposing the state of times and actions of men, 
M. Sen. Contr.  Divinum numen, etiam qua non apparet, rebus humanis intervenit; his power insinuates itself, and even works there, where it doth not appear. Though he be in heaven, yet he can work at this distance, for he fills the heaven and the earth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he beholdeth all things, he heareth all things, he speaks to thee, and he speaks in thee, he hears thee when thou speakest; and he hears thee when thou speakest not; in his book are all things written, nay, he keeps a book in the very closet of thy heart, the only book which shall go along with thee, and when he comes, it shall fly open, every chapte, revery letter, every character of sin shall be as plain to thy eye, as to his, and though we here seal up this book, he can read it when it is shut. He sitteth there tanquam venturus, as one coming. Indeed to us (who like those Philosophers in Tully, seeing nothing with our mind, refer all to our sense, and scarce believe any thing but that, for which we have an ocular demonstration; the eye of whose faith is so dull, and heavy, that it cannot clearly discern that eye of our Lord which is ten thousand times brighter than the sun) he is most times as lost; like Epicuus his God doing nothing, like Baal either in his journey, or sleeping, and as at his first coming he was had in no reputation, so now he is at the right hand of God, he is in a manner forgot. We do not insult over him in plain terms, as those did in Theodoret 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉? what doth the Carpenter's son now do? but we are as slow of heart to believe what we are taught, and what we say we believe; as those disciples which went to Emaus. We are told that he did rise again from the Dead, and ascended, and sitteth at the right hand of God, and will come again, but 'tis a long time since these things were done, and he is long a coming. To the Atheist, to the profane person, to the Lukewarm Christian, to the Hypocrite, he is in a manner lost, they have sealed up his grave, and he will come no more. And this is one argument, that he will come; even this, that we so little regard it; for can a Lord that breathes nothing but love, bear with such contempt? can he whom the voice of God, and man, whom Scripture, and Miracles, and reason have placed on the Tribunal, and made judge of all the world, be kept back by these vain Imaginations, which are nothing else, but the steam, and exhalations from our sensual, and Brutish part? shall not he judge all the earth, because we are guilty, and deserve to be condemned? no, veniet, veniet his etiamsi nolis veniet, he will come, 
August.  he will certainly come whether thou wilt or no; nor is delay in coming an Argument, that he will not come. For the Lord is not slack concerning his promise, and Coming, as some count slackness, some scoffers, who walk after their own lusts, and ask where is the promise of his coming; For sensuality is the Mother, and nurse of unbelief; and the sense flies the Knowledge of that, which is terrible to it; and so we are as Saint Peter tells us, 
2 Pet. 3.3,4.  willingly ignorant of that which we are Taught, and will not consider, that the world is made of corruptible parts, and therefore must at last be dissolved, and, 
vers. 12.  that as the old world perished by water, so this shall by fire. For what guilty Person doth not study to drive the thought of a Judge coming, out of his mind? He that hath his delight, his heaven in this world, is not willing to hear of another to come, venit, the Lord comes, is not in his Creed; Sed nulla est mora ejus, quod certò eveniet, but the deferring, or delay of that which will certainly come, should not come into our Consideration; for come he will, though he come not yet, and when he is come, all the time past and before, in which we grew wanton, and presumptuous, and beat our fellow servants, is not in true esteem, so much as a moment, or the twinkling of an eye. 'Tis not slackness, 'tis not delay: That is our false Gloss, who when we break the Law, are as willing to misinterpret the Lawgiver; The Hypocrite thinks him as very a dissembler, as himself, and is well persuaded, that though he threaten, yet he meaneth it not, though he hath denounced judgement against those that sin, and repent not, yet he will not be so good, or rather as bad as his word; The sacrilegious person looks upon him as an enemy to Churches, and he it is, that puts the hammer into his hand, to beat down his own Temple. 
Tertul. de Animâ.  The profane person would excaecare providentiam Dei, would put out the eye of his Providence, and the moral Atheist pull him from his Throne, and thrust him out of the world: Every man frames such a God, as will fit him, and proportions him to his lusts, we draw him out, as the Painter did the Goddess, in the likeness of those vanities, which we most dote on, and so we entitle him to our fraud and Oppression, 
Petrarch.  invenimus quomodo etiam Avarum facerem, we have found an Art to bring him in as an Abettor, a Promoter of our Covetousness, and Ambition, and so, as much as in us lies, make him as Ambitious, 
Psal. 50.21.  and Coveto us as ourselves, Thou thoughtest verily, that I was like unto thee, saith God to the Hypocrite; behold Christ sits at the right hand of God, in full power, and Majesty, ready to descend, but he comes not yet, and hence the scorner concludes he will never come. This is a false Gloss, and a false conclusion, the result and Inference of flesh and blood; for 'tis not slackness; that's the dictate of our lusts; but if Truth interpret it, 
2 Pet. 3.15.  'tis long suffering, & his long suffering should end, and be eased in our repentance; Saint Peter tells us; It is Repentance; It is, what it should be; if it be not Repentance, we have driven it from itself; and see; now 'tis nothing, but wrath, and Indignation: his long suffering, is either our Repentance, or our Condemnation.  
And this is the true reason, 
Why he comes not yet. Isid. l. V.  why he is not yet come; but as it were, a coming; For Time is nothing unto him, nor is it any thing in itself; nec intelligitur nisi per actus humanos nor can we conceive; or understand it, but by those Actions, which we do now and again, and which we cannot do at once, A Thousand years in his sight, are but as yesterday, but not so long, not so long as a Thought; he delays not, but he bears with us in this our Time, we look upon the Day of Judgement, as upon a Day to come, but to him it is present; That he is not come to us; is for our sakes. For the Church of Christ, till the consummation of all things, is in Fluxu, in Corpore Temporum (as Tert. speaks) is wrapped up in the Body of Time, comes not simul & semel, at once, but successively gains the addition of parts: St. Paul calls it a body, and though it be not such a Body as the Stoics fancied quoth more Fluminum in assiduâ diminutione, & adjectione est, which like Rivers, receives every day increase, and every day diminution, and is not the same to Day, which it was yesterday, yet is it corpus aggregatum, a collected Body, which is not made up at once in every part, but receives its parts successively: She is Terrible, as an Army with Banners, as it is said of the Spouse in the Canticles, and in an Army you know, the Van may lodge there to night, where the Rear cometh not till the Morning: So it is with the Church, it hath always its parts, yet hath always parts to be added; so we read, Acts 2. and the last verse, That the Lord added daily, that is, successively, such as should be saved; Quantum iniquitatis grassatur tantum abest regnum Dei, quod secum affert plenam re ●itudinem, saith the Father, Christ is come, and yet is still a coming; whilst there are Heresies, and Schisms in the Church, whilst the one undermineth the Bulwarks without, and the other raises a Mutiny within, whilst the Devil rageth, and men sin, there be yet some to be gathered to his Sheep-fold, and though in respect of his Power, he be already come, yet for his Elects sake, he will not execute it yet. And this is the very reason, which Justine Martyr gives of the proroguing, and delay of his coming and why the Consummation, and end of all things is not yet, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, for mankind's sake, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, for the seed of Christians, which is yet to be propagated; for by his eternal Wisdom, he foresee, That many there be, who will believe, and turn to him by Repentance; and some that be not, even many, who are yet unborn; in his second Apology for the Christians; For the promise is made to you, and to your children saith Saint Peter, & natis natorum & qui nascentur ab illis, and to all that are afar off, 
Acts 2.39.  even as many as the Lord God shall call; for how many thousands are not yet, who shall be Saints? for their sakes it is; that the Lord doth not consume the world with fire; that he doth not come to judge the world; that wicked men are permitted to revel on the earth and the devil to rage; that he suffers that which he abhors, suffers injustice to move its arms at large, and spread itself like a green bay tree, and leaves innocency bound in chains; that he suffers men to break his commands, to question his providence, to doubt of his being, and essence, that we see this disorder and confusion; the world in a manner dissolved, before its end; but when that number is full, a number which we know not, or if we did, cannot know, when he will fill it up; when that is complete, than time shall be no more; then, Lo he comes, and will purge the world of Heresy and Schism, will appear in that Majesty; that the Atheists shall confess he is God, and see all those crooked ways, in which his providence seemed to walk, made even and straight; then the Epicure shall see, that it was not below him to sit in heaven, and look upon the children of men; no dishonur to his Majesty, to manage and guide all those things which are done under the Moon; that he may ride upon the Cherubin, and yet number every hair of our head, and observe the Sparrow, that falls from the house top; then we shall see him; and we shall see all things put under his feet, even Heresy, and Schism, profaneness and Atheism, sin and death, Hell, and the Devil himself. This he hath in effect done already by the virtue, and power of his Cross, and therefore may be said to be come; But because we resist and hinder that, will not suffer him to make his conquest full, and when we cannot reach him at the right hand of God, pursue and fight against him in his members, he will come again, and then cometh the end, another consummatum est, all shall be finished, his victory, and triumph complete, and he shall lift up the heads of his despised servants, and tread down all his enemies under his feet 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the most proper sense, 
Coloss. 2.15.  Triumph, and make a show of them openly.  
And this is a fit object for a Christian to look upon. Of this more—    

THE FIFTEENTH SERMON.  MATTH. 24.42. 
Dominus venturus, The Lord will come.  
Nescitis quâ horâ, You know not what hour.  

PART. II.  
WE have already beheld the person, our Lord; and we have placed him on his Tribunal, as a judge, (for the Father hath committed the judgement to the Son) you have seen his Dominion in his Laws, which were fitted and proportioned to it: as his Sceptre is a Sceptre of Righteousness, so his Laws are just; no man, no Devil can question them; we approve them as soon as we hear them, and we approve them when we break them; for that check which our conscience gives us, is an approbation. You have seen the virtue and power of his dominion; for what is regal right, without regal power? what is a Lord, without a sword? or what is a sword if he cannot manage it? what is a wiseman, if a wiser than he? what is a strong man, if a stronger than he comes upon him? but our Lord, 
Es. 9.6.  as he is called wonderful, Counsellor, so is he the Mighty God: who can stand before him when he is angry? We have showed you the large compass, and circuit of his Dominion, no place so distant, or remote, to which it doth not reach; It is over them that love him, and over them that crucify him: It is over them that honour him, 
Luk. 1.33  and over them that put him to open shame; and last of all, the durability, or rather the eternity of it, for of his Dominion there shall be no end, saith the Angel to Mary, and take the words going before, he shall reign over the house of Jacob, and the sense will be plain; for as long as there is a house of Jacob, a people and Church on earth, so long shall he reign; as his Priesthood, so his Dominion is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and shall never pass away.  
We must now fix our eyes upon him, as ready to descend, in puncto reversus, settled in his place, but upon his return, Dominus venturus, the Lord will come, it is a word of the future tense, as all predictions are of things to come, and it is verbum operativum, a word full of eshcacie, and virtue. First, to awake and stir up our faith. Secondly, to raise our hope; and Thirdly to inflame our charity. It is an object for our faith to look on, for our hope to reach at, and for our Charity to embrace.  
And first it offers itself to our faith; for ideo Deus alscessit, ut fides nostra corroboretur, therefore doth our Saviour stay, and not bow the heavens, and come down, that our faith which may reach him there, may be built up here upon earth, and he is therefore absent, and in a manner lies hid, that this eye might find him out; For faith is a kind of prospective or optic Instrument, by which we see things afar off, as if they were near at hand; things that are not yet, as if they were, turns venturus est, into the present tense, behold Christ not only sitting at the right hand of God, but as now already descending with a shout: With this eye of faith, I see new Heavens, and a new earth, a new face of every thing, I see what a nothing, that is, which mortals sweat, and fight for; what a nothing the world is; for I see it on fire; I see righteousness, peace, and order, constancy, duration, even whilst I walk in this shop of vanities, this World of wickedness, this Chaos, and confusion; this seat of change; I see honesty pitied, scorned, baffled, honesty lifted up on high, far above reproach or injury; I see injustice powerful, all conquering, Triumphant injustice trembling before this Lord, arraigned, condemned, fling down into the lowest pit, there to be whipped with many stripes: I see now the wisdom of men made foolishness, and the foolishness of God wiser than men; I see that restored, which I saw lost; I see the eye that was bored out, in its prace again, I see the ploughed back, with no furrow on it; I see Herod in prison, and John Baptist with his head on; I see my goods restored, before I lose them, and I am in heaven, before the blow is given, in bliss when every eye doth pity me, and what is now left for the boasting Tyrant to do? what can he take from me, that is worth a thought? what can he strip me of, but that which I have laid down, and left already behind me? will he have my goods? the treasury where they are kept, is out of his reach; will he take from me my good name? 'tis written in the book of life; or will he take my life? my life? he cannot; For 'tis hid with Christ in God. This is sancta impudentia Fidei, the holy boldness, and confidence of faith to break through flesh and blood, all difficulties whatsoever, to draw down Heaven to earth, and if the object be invisible, to make it visible, if it be at distance to make it present, if the Lord say, he will come, to faith he is come already. This operation faith will have, if it be not dulled, and deadened by our sensuality: for what faith is that, which is not accompanied with these high apprehensions, and resolutions equal to them? what faith is that which leaves us weary of the truth, and ashamed of our profession? what faith is that, which we are so ready at every frown to renounce? shall I call that faith which cannot strike the Timbrel out of our hands, nor the strumpet out of our arms? That shows Christ coming to the Covetous, yet leaves him digging in the earth; to the ambitious, and cannot stop him in his mount? to the hypocrite, and cannot strike off his mask, to the Politician and cannot make him wise unto Salvation? that cannot make us displease ourselves, that cannot make us love ourselves, not awe an eye, not bind a hand, not silence a word, not stifle a thought, but leaves us with as little power, and activity as they who have been dead long ago, although the venturus est, the Doctrine of Christ's second Advent sound as loud as the Trump shall do at the last day? faith shall we call this, or a weak, and faint persuasion, or a dream? or an Echo from an hollow heart, which when all the World proclaims it venturus est, he will come, resounds it back again into the world? a faith which can speak, but not walk, or work, a faith which may dwell in the heart of an Hypocrite, a murderer, a Devil? for all this he may believe or at least profess, and yet be that liar, that Antichrist, which denies Jesus to be the Lord, or that he ever came in the flesh, or will come again to judge both the quick and the dead.  
Secondly, As it casts an Aspect upon our Faith, so it doth upon hope, which 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the blood of our Faith, saith Clemens Alexand. 
Paedag. 1. Tertul. advers. Gnostic. c. 6.  without which, it will grow faint, and pale, and languish; oportet habere aliquem spei cumulum, saith Tertul. and therefore this addition of Hope to Faith, is necessary, for if we had all Faith, and had not hope, this Faith would profit us nothing, and faith without Hope may be in Hell, as well as on the earth; Believe, who does not? or at least say so? but how many expect his coming? how many are saved? 
Heb. 10.  the Apostle speaks of a fearful looking for of Judgement; indeed they who hope not for it, who do but talk of it, and are unwilling to believe themselves, may be said to look for it, because they ought to do it; and his coming is as certain, as if they did; Truly and properly they cannot be said to expect it; for how should that he in their expectation, which is not so much as in their thought? Hope will not raise itself upon every Faith, nor is that Faith (which the most of the world most depend on) a fit Basis for hope to build upon; even he that despairs, believes; or else he could not despair; for who will droop for fear of that veniet, of that judgement, which he is so willing to persuade himself, will never come? Foolish men that we are, who hath bewitched us? that we should glory in Faith an Hope, and make them the subjects of our Songs, and rejoicing, when our Faith is but such a one, as is Dead, and our hope at last will make us ashamed? when our Faith is the same, which is in hell, and our Hope will leave us with the Devil, and his Angels? a Faith worse than Infidelity, and a hope more dangerous than despair; a Faith, when we do not believe, and a Hope, when there is great reason we should despair, and which will serve only to add to the number of our stripes; yet this is the Faith, this is the hope of the Hypocrite, of the Formal Christian, These are thy gods oh Israel.  

3.  And therefore in the last place, that we may join these two together, Faith and Hope, we must draw in that excellent gift of Charity, which is Copulatrix virtus, saith Cyprian, the uniting, coupling Virtue, not only of men, but of these two Theological Virtues, which will not meet together, but in Love, or if they do, with so little truth, and reality, that they will rather disadvantage, then help us; for where Virtue is not, the name is but an Accusation: I told you before, that hope doth Suppose Faith. For we cannot hope for that, which we do not believe, yet Faith (such as it may be) may show itself, and speak proud words, when Charity is Thrust out of Doors, and many there be, who have subscribed to the venturus est, that the Lord will come, who have little reason to hope for his coming: How many believe, he will come, and bring his reward with him, and yet strike off their own Chariot wheels, and drive but heavily towards it? how many believe there is a Judge to come, and wish there were none? Faith; Saving Faith, Hope, Hope that will not make ashamed, cannot dwell in the heart till Charity hath taken up a room; but when she is diffusa in cordibus, shed, and spread abroad in our Hearts, than they are in Conjunction, and meet together, and kiss each other, Faith is a Foundation, and on it our love raiseth itself as high as heaven in all the several branches and parts of it: Because I believe, I love, and when my love is real and perfect, my hope springs up, and blooms, and flourishes: my Faith sees the object, my Love embraceth it, and the means unto it, and my Hope lays hold of it, and even takes possession of it. And therefore this venturus est, This coming of the Lord is a Threat, and not a promise, if they meet not: If Faith work not by Love; and both together raise not a Hope, venturus est, he will come, is a Thunderbolt; And thus, as it looks upon Faith and Hope, so it calls for our Charity; For whether we will or no, whether we believe or no, whether we hope or no, veniet, he will certainly come, but when we love him, than we love also his appearance, and his coming, and our Love is a subscription to his Promise, 
2 Tim. 4.8.  by which we truly Testify our consent, and sympathise with him, and say Amen, to his Promise, That he will come, we echo it back again unto him, Even so, come Lord Jesus: For that of Faith may be in a manner forced, That of Hope may be groundless, but this of Love is a free, and voluntary subscription. Though I I know he will come, yet I shall be unwilling he should come upon me, as an Enemy, that he should come to me when I sit in the Chair of the Scornful, or lie in the bed of Lust, or am wallowing in the mire, or weltering in my own blood, or washing my feet in the blood of my Brethren; for can any condemned person hope for the day of Execution? But when I love him, and bow before him, when I have improved his Talon, and brought myself to that Temper, and Constitution, that I am of the same mind with this Lord, and partaker of his divine Nature, than Faith openeth, and displayeth herself, and Hope towereth up as high, as the right Hand of God, and would bring him down, never at rest, never at an end, but panting after him, till he do come, crying out with the souls under the Altar, How long Lord? How long? How long? is the very breathing and language of Hope; Than Substantia mea apud te, 
Psal. 62.5.  as the vulgar reads that of the Psalmist, my expectation, my substance, my being is with the Lord, and I do not only subscribe to the veniet, to his coming, because he hath Decreed, and resolved upon it, but because I can make an hearty Acknowledgement, that the will of the Lord is just and good, and I assent not of Necessity, but of a willing mind, and I am not only willing, but long for it, and, as he Testifies these Things, and confirms this Article of his coming, with this last word, etiam venio, surely I come; so shall I be able truly to Answer, Even so come Lord Jesus, come quickly.  

The End of his Coming.  
And now venturus est, the Lord will come, and you may see the Necessity of his coming in the End of his coming, for qualis Dominus, talis adventus, as his Dominion is, such is his Coming, his Kingdom spiritual, and his coming to punish sin, and reward Obedience, to make us either Prisoners in Darkness, or Kings, and Priests to reign with him, and offer up spiritual Sacrifices for evermore. He comes not to answer the Disciples question, to restore the Kingdom to Israel; for his Kingdom is not such a one, as they dreamt of, nor to place the Mother of Zebedees' Children, the one at his right Hand, and the other at his left; nor to bring the Lawyer to his Table to eat bread with him in his Kingdom; These carnal conceits might suit well with the Synagogue, which looked upon nothing, but the Basket: and yet to bring in this Error, the Jews, as they killed the Prophets, so must they also abolish their Prophecies, which speak plainly of a King of no shape or beauty: 
Esai. 53.2. Zech. 9.9. Isa, 9.6.  of his first coming in lowliness and poverty; of a Prince of Peace, and not of war, of the Increase of whose Government there shall be no end. Nor doth he come to lead the Chiliast, the Dreamer of a Thousand years of Temporal Happiness on Earth, into a mahometical Paradise of all Corporal Contentments, That after the Resurrection, the Elect (and even a Reprobate may think, or callhim self so) may reign with Christ a thousand years in all state and Pomp, and in the Affluence of all those Pleasures which this Lord hath taught them to renounce. A conceit, which ill becomes Christians, who must look for a better, and more enduring substance, who are strangers and Pilgrims, 
Heb. 10.34. Heb. 11.13.  and not Kings on earth, whose Conversation is in heaven, and whose whole life must be a going out of the World; why should we be commanded, and that upon pain of eternal separation from this our Lord, to wean ourselves from the World, and every thing in the World, if the same Lord Think these flatteries of our worse part, these pleasures, which we must loathe, a fit and proportionable reward, for the labour of our Faith and Charity, which is done in the Inward man? can he forbidden us to touch and Taste these Things, and then glut us with them, because we did not Touch them? and can it now change its Nature, and be made a Recompense of those Virtues, which were as the wings on which we did fly away, and so kept ourselves untouched, unspotted of this Evil. But they urge Scripture for it, and so they soon may, for it is soon misunderstood, & soon misapplyed: It is written they say, in the 20. of the Revel. at the 6. v. that the Saints shall reign with Christ a thousand years; shall reign with Christ, is evidence fair enough to raise those spirits which are too high, or rather too low already 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, no sooner is the word read, but the crown is on. To let pass the divers interpretations of that place, some making the number to be definite, some to be indefinite; some beginning the thousand years with the persecution of Christ, and ending it in Antichrist; others beginning it with the reign of Constantine, when Christianity did most flourish, and ending it at the first rising of the Ottoman Empire: some beginning it at the year 73. and drawing it on to conclude in the year 1073. when Hildebrand began to Tyrannize in the Church; To let pass these, (since no man is able to reconcile them) we can not but wonder, that so gross an error should spread so far in the first and best times of the Church, as to find entertainment with so many, but less wonder that it is revived and fostered by so many in ours, who have less learning, but more art to misinterpret, and wrest the Scriptures ●o their own Damnation. For what can they find in this text to make them kings? no more than many of them, can find in themselves, to make them Saints? And here is no mention of all the Saints, but of Martyrs alone, who were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, v. 4. But we may say of this book of the Revelation, as Aristotle spoke of his books of Physic, that it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, that it is published, and not published; published, but not for every man to fasten what sense he please upon it, though we cannot deny, but some few of latter times (and so few, as but enough to make up a number) have by their multiplicity of reading, and subtle diligence of observation, and by a dextrous comparing those particulars, which are registered in story, with those things which are but darkly revealed; or plainly revealed to Saint John, but not so plain to us,) have raised us such probabilities, that we may look up them with favour, and satisfaction till we see some fairer evidence appear, some more happy conjectures brought forth, which may impair, and lessen hat credit which as yet (for aught that hath been seen) they well deserve. But this is not every man's work.  〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. 
Every man's eye is not so quick, and piercing to see at such distance; and we see, since so many men, have taken the courage, and been bold to play the interpreters of their dark Prophecies, they have shaped out what fancies they please; and instead of unfolding Revelations, have presented us with nothing but dreams, as so many divers morals to one fable, and foe for two witnesses we have a cloud; for one Beast, almost as many as be in the Forest, and for one Antichrist, every man that displeaseth us. But let men interpret the thousand years how they please; Our Saviour calls it an error, an error that strikes at the very heart of Christianity, which promiseth no riches nor power, nor pleasure, but that which is proportioned to those virtues and spiritual duties, of which it consists. For in the Resurrection neither do they marry Wives, nor are married, we may add neither are there high nor love, neither rich nor poor, but all are one in Christ Jesus; and his words are plain enough, 
Quaedam sic digna revinci, ne gravitate adorentur. Tert. adv. Valentin.  John 18. my Kingdom is not of this World. I should scarce have vouchsafed to mention an error so gross, and which carries absurdity in the very face of it, but that we have seen this monster dressed up and brought abroad, and magnified in this latter age, and in our own times, which, as they abound with iniquity, so they do with errors, which to study to confute, were to honour them too much, who make their ●…ual appetite a key to open Revelations, and to please and satisfy that, are well content here to build their Tabernacle, and stay on earth a thousand years amongst those pleasing objects, which our Religion bids us to contemn, and to be so long absent from that joy and peace, which is past understanding. Their Heaven is, as their virtues are full of dross & earth, and but a poor and imperfect resemblance of that which is so indeed; and their conceit as carnal as themselves, which Christianity and even common reason abhors; For look upon them, and you shall behold them full of debate, envy, malice, covetousness, ambition, minding earthly things, and so fancy a reward like unto themselves 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, like embraceth like, as mire is more pleasing to swine, than the waters of Jordan: and it is no wonder, to hear them so loud and earnest for riches and pleasure, and a temporal Kingdom, who have so weak a title to, and so little hope of any other.  
But God forbidden, that our Lord should come, and flesh and blood prescribe the manner, for then in how many several shapes must he appear in? he must come to the covetous and fill his coffers, to the wanton and build him a Seraglio, to the ambitious and crown him; no his advent shall be like himself, he shall come in power, & majesty, in a form answerable to his Laws & Government, and as all things were gathered together in him, 
Eph. 1.10,22.  which are in Heaven, and which are in earth, and God hath put all things under his feet, so he shall come unto all, to Angels, to the Creature, to men. And 1. he may well be said to come unto the Angels; For he is the head of all Principality and Power, 
colos. 2.10.  & as at his first coming, he confirmed them in their happy estate of obedience (which we believe as probable, though we have no plain evidence of Scripture for it) so at his second, he shall more fully show that to them, that which they desired to look into, 
1 Pet. 1.17.  (as Saint Peter speaks) give them a clearer vision of God, and increase the joy of the good, as he shall the torments of evil Angels. For if they sang for joy at his Birth, what Hosannas and Hallelujahs will they sound forth, when they attend him with a shout? if they were so taken with his humility, how will they be ravished with his Glory, and if there by joy in Heaven for one sinner that reputes, how will that joy be exalted when those repentant sinners shall be made like unto the Angels? when they shall be of the same Choir, and sing the same song, glory and honour to him that sitteth upon the Throne, and to this Lord, for Evermore?  
Secondly, he comes unto the Creatures to redeem them from bondage; for the desire of the Creature is for this day of his coming; 
Rom. 8.19,22  for even the whole Creation groaneth with us also, but when he comes they shall be reform into a better estate; 
2 Pet. 3.13.  there shall be new Heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness. Now the Creature is subjecta vanitati, subject to vanity; not only to change, and mutability, but to be instrumental to evil purposes, to rush into the battle with us, to run upon the Angel's sword, to be our drudges and our Parasites, to be the hire of a whore, and the price of blood. They groan as it were and travail in pain under these abuses, and therefore desire to be delivered, not out of any rational desire, but a natural inclination, which is in every thing to preserve itself, in its best condition. To these Dominus veniet, the Lord will come, and his coming is called the consummation of all things, that which makes all things perfect, and restores every thing to its proper, and natural condition. The creature shall have its rest; the earth shall be no more wounded with our plowshares, nor the bowels of it digged up with the mattock, there shall be no forbidden fruit to be tasted, no pleasant waters to be stolen; no Manna to surfeit on, no Crowns to fight for, no wedge of gold to be a prey, no beauty to be a snare, Dominus veniet, the Lord will come, and deliver his Creature from this bondage, perfect and consummate all, and at once set an end both to the world, and vanity.  
Lastly, Dominus venit, the Lord will come to men both good, and evil, he shall come in his glory, 
Math. 25.31,32.  and he shall gather all Nations and separate the one from another, as a Shepherd divideth his sheep from his goats, and by this make good his Justice, and manifest his providence in the end; for his Justice is that, which when the world is out of order, establisheth the pillars thereof, for sin is an injury to the whole Creation, and inverts that order, which the Wisdom of God had first set up in the World. My Adultery defileth my body, my oppression grindeth the poor, my malice vexes my brother, my craft removes the Landmark, my particular sins have their particular objects, but they all strike at the universe, disturb and violate that order which wisdom itself first established; and therefore the Lord comes to bring every thing back to its proper place, to make all the ways of his Providence consonant, and agreeable to themselves; to Crown the Repentant Sinner that recovered his place, and bind and setter the stubborn and obstinate offendor, who could not be wrought upon by promises, or by Threats to move in his own sphere, Dominus veniet, the Lord will come to show, what light he can strike out of Darkness, what Harmony he can work out of the greatest disorder, what beauty he can raise out of the deformed body of sin: for sin is a foul deformity in Nature, and therefore he comes in judgement to order, and place it there, where it may be forced to serve for the Grace, and Beauty of the whole, where the punishment of sin may wipe out the disorder of sin, where every thing is placed as it should be, and every man sent 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, 
Act. 1.25. Gers.  to his proper place; nec pulchrius in coelo Angelus. quant in Gehennâ Diabolus; Heaven is a fit and proper place for an Angel of light, for the Children of God; and Hell is as fit and proper for the Devil, and his Angels. Now the ways of men are croo●ed & Intricate, and their Actions carried on with that contrariety, and contradiction, that to quit and help himself out of them and take himself off from that Amazement, 
Duos Ponticus deos tanquam duas Symplegadas naufragii sui adsert, quem negare non potuit, i.e. creatorem. i e. nostrum: & quem procare non pote●it. i. e suum. Tert c. 1. adv. Martion.  Martion ran dangerously upon the greatest Blasphemy, and brought in two Principles, one of Good, and another of Evil; that is, two Gods, but when he shall come, and lay Judgement to the line, all things will be even and equal; and the Heretic shall see, that there is but one: now all is jarring, discord and confusion, when he comes, he makes an everlasting Harmony; he will draw every thing to its right and proper end, restore Order and beauty to his work, fill up those breaches, which sin hath made, and manifest his wisdom and Providence, which here are looked upon, as hidden mysteries; in a word, to make his Glory shine out of Darkness, as he did light, when the earth was without form; That the Lord may be all in all.  
Here in this world, all lies as in a night, in darkness, in a Chaos or confusion, and we see neither what ourselves, nor others are: we see, indeed, as we are seen, see others as they see us, with no other Eyes, but those, which the Prince of this world hath blinded: Our Judgement is not the Result of our Reason, but is raised from by, and vile respects: If it be a friend, we are friends to his vice, and study Apologies for it: If it be an enemy, we are Angry with his virtue, and abuse our wits, to disgrace it; If he be in Power; our eyes dazzle, and we see a God come down to us, in the shape of a man, and worship this Meteor, though exhaled, and raised from the dung, with as great Reverence, and Ceremony, as the Persians did the Sun: what he speaks, is an Oracle, and what he doth is an Example, and the Coward, the Mammonist, or the Beast gives sentence, in stead of the man, which is lost, and buried in these. If he be small, and of no repute in the world, he is condemned already, though he have reason enough to see the Folly of his Judges, and with pity can null the Censure which they pass. If he be of our Faction, we call him, as the Manichees did the chiefest of their Sect, one of the Elect; but if his Charity will not suffer him to be of any, we cast him out, and count him a Reprobate. The whole world is a Theatre, or rather a Court of corrupt Judges, which judge themselves & one another, but never judge righteous Judgement: for as we Judge of others, so we do of ourselves: Judicio favor officit, our self-love puts out the eye of our Reason, or rather diverts it from that which is good, and employs it in finding out many Inventions to set up Evil in its place, as the Prophet Esay speaks, we feed on Ashes, a deceived Heart hath Turned us aside, 
Isa. 44.20.  that we cannot deliver our soul, and say, is there not a lie in our Right Hand. Thus he that sows but sparingly, is Liberal, He that loves the world, is not Covetous; He, whose eyes are full of the Adultress, is chaste: He that sets up an Image, and falls down before it, is not an Idolater: he that drinks down blood, as an Ox doth water, is not a Murderer; He that doth the works of his Father the Devil, is a Saint. 
Multa injustè fieri possunt, quae nemo possit reprehendere Cic. de Finibus. 93.  Many things we see in the world, most unjustly done, which we call righteousness, because no man can commence a suit against us, or call us into question, and we doubt not of Heaven; if we fall not from our cause, or be cast, as they speak, in Westminster Hall: If Omri'● statutes be kept, we soon persuade ourselves, that the power of this Lord will not reach us; and if our names hold fair amongst men, we are too ready to tell ourselves, That they are written also in the Book of Life. This is the Judgement of the world; Thus we judge others; and thus we judge ourselves, so biased with the Flesh, that for the most, we pass wide of the Truth. Others are not to us, nor are we to ourselves, what we are, but the work of our own hands, made up in the world, and with the help of the world; for the wisdom of this world is our Spirit and Genius, that raises every Thought, dictates all our words, begetteth all our Actions, and by it, as by our God, we live, and move, and have our being. And now, since judgement is thus corrupted in the world, even Justice requires it, Et veniet Dominus, qui malè judicata rejudicabit, the Lord will come, and give judgement against all these crooked and perverse Judgements, and shall lay Righteousness to the Plummet, 
Is. 28.17.  and with his oreath sweep away the refuge of lies; and shall judge, and pass another manner of sentence upon us, and others, than we do in this world. Then shall we be told, which we would never believe, though we have had some Grudge, and whisper, some half Informations within us, which the love of this world did soon silence and suppress; Then shall he speak to us in his displeasure, 
Aliud est judicium Christi, aliud anguli Susurrorum. Hier.  and though we have talked of him all the day long tell us we forgot him; If we set up a golden Image, he shall call us Idolaters, though we intended it not; and when we build up the Sepulchers of the Prophets, and flatter ourselves, and accuse our Forefathers; tell us we are as great murderers, as they; and thus find us guilty of that which we protest against, and haters of that, which we think we love, and lovers of that, which we think we detest, and take us from behind the bush, from every lurking hole, from all shelter of excuse, take us from our Rock, our Rock of Air, on which we were built, and dash our presumptuous Assurance to Nothing. Nor can a sigh, or a groan, or a loud profession, a Fast, or long Prayers corrupt this Lord, or alter his sentence, but he shall judge, as he knows, who knows more of us, than we are willing to take notice of, and is greater the our Conscience (which we shrink, and dilate at pleasure, and fit to every purpose) and knoweth all things, and shall judge us, not by our Pretence, our Intent, or forced Imagination, but secundum Evangelium, according to his Gospel: veniet, he shall come when all is thus out of Order, to set all at Right, and straight again; And this is the end of his coming.   

The Third Particular.  
Non nostis Horam, You know not the Hour.  
And now being well assured that he will come, we are yet to seek, and are ready with the Disciples to Ask, When will these things be? and what hour will he come? veniet, come he will! Et hocsatis est, aut nescio quid satis sit, as P. Varus spoke upon another occasion, this is enough, or we cannot see what is enough.  
But nothing is enough to those, who have no mind, nor Heart to make use of that, which is enough, to them enough is too much, for they look upon it, as if 'twere nothing: and therefore Christ doth not feed, and nourish this thriftless and unprofitable Humour, but bridles, and checks it, puts in his veto, his prohibition, not to search after more, then is Enough. Non nostis Horam, you know not the hour, is all the Answer, which he (who best knows what 'tis fit for us to know) will afford our Curiosity. For what is that we do not desire to know? 
Sen. devit. Beat. c. 32.  Curiosum nobis Natura dedit ingenium, saith the Philosopher, Nature itself may seem to have imprinted this itch of Curiosity in our very minds and wits, made them inquisitive, given them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, an eye, which never sleeps, never rests upon one Object, but passeth by that, and gazeth after another; That he will come, is not enough for our busy, but idle curiosity to know: we seek further yet, to know that (which cannot be known) the Time and very hour of his coming. The mind of man is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, 
Enormi, & otiosae curiositati, tan●a●… decrit dis ere, quantum ●buerit inqui●ere. Terr de Anima c. ult.  restless, in perpetual motion; It walks through the Earth, sometimes looks upon that which delights it; sometimes that, which grieves it, stays, and dwells too long upon both, and misinterprets them, to her own Impoverishing and disadvantage, perru●pit Coeli munimenta, saith Seneca, it breaks through the very Gates of Heaven, and there busily pries after the Nature of Angels, and of God himself, but see it not; Enters the Holy of Holies, and there is venturing into the Closet of his secrets; and there is lost, lost in the search of those Things, of Times, and Seasons, which are past finding out, and are therefore set at such a distance that we may not send so much as a Thought after them; which if they could be known, yet could not advantage us. It was a good Commendation, which Tacitus gives of Agricola, retinuit, quod est difficulimum, in sapientiâ modum, 
In vita Agricolae.  He did (what is difficult for man to do) bound and moderate himself in the pursuit of knowledge, and desired to know no more, then that which might be of use, and profitable to him, which wisdom of his, had it gained so much credit, as to prevail with the sons of men, which would be thought the Children of Wisdom, they had then laid out the precious. Treasure of their Time, on that alone, which did concern them, and not prodigally misspent it on that, which is impertinent, in seeking that which did fly from them, when they were most intentive, and Eager in their search; If this Moderation had been observed; There be Thousand questions, which had never been raise d; Thousand Opinions which had never been broached; Thousands of errors, which had never showed their heads, to disturb the Peace of the Church, to obstruct and hinder us, in those ways of Obedience, which alone (without this impertinent turning our eye, and looking aside) will carry us in a straight and even course unto our end. Why should I pride myself, in the Finding out a new conclusion, when 'tis my greatest, and my only glory to be a New Creature? why should I take such pains to reconcile Opinions which are Contrary? my businese is to still the Contradictions of my mind; those Counsels and desires, which every day thwart, and oppose one another: what profit is it to refute other men's errors, whilst I approve, and love, and Hugg my own? What purchase were it to find out the very Antichrist, and to be able to say, This is the man? All that is required of me, is to be a Christian: what if I were assured the Pope was the Beast I sought for? he appeared in as foul a shape to me, before that Title was written in his forehead; for I consider more what he is, than what he is called, and thousands are now with Christ in heaven, who yet never knew this his great Adversary on earth; and why should I desire to know the time, when Christ will come, when no other command lies upon me, but his, to watch, and prepare myself for his coming? when all that I can know, or concerns me is drawn up within the compass of this one word watch, which should be as the centre, and all other truths drawn from it, as so many lines to bear up the circumference of constant and a continued watch.  
Christ tells us he will come, Hoc satis est dixisse Deo, and this is enough for him to tell us, and for us to know he tells us that we cannot know it, that the Angels cannot know it, that the Son of man himself knows it not, that it cannot be known, that 'tis not fit to be known, and yet we would know it; some there have been, who pretended they knew it by the secret Revelation of the spirit, though it were a lying spirit, or a wanton fancy that spoke within them; (For men are never more quick of belief, then when they tell themselves a lie) and yet the Apostle exhorts the Thessalonians that they would not be shaken in mind, 
2 Thes. 2.2.  nor troubled neither by spirit, nor word, nor by letter as from him, as that the day of Christ is at hand: others call in tradition; others find out a Mystery in the number of 7. and so have taken the full age of the world, which is to end say they after 6. hundred years; and this they find, not only in the six months the Ark floated on the waters, and its rest on the mountains of Ararat in the seventh; in Moses coming out of the cloud, and the walls of Jericho falling down the seventh day, but in the seven vials, and the seven Trumpets in the Revelation, such time and leisure hear men found perscrutari, & interrogare latebras numerorum, to Divine by numbers; by their art and skill to dig the air, and find precious metal there, where men of common apprehensions can find no such treasure inter irrita exercere ingenia, to catch at Atoms and shadows, and spend their time to no purpose; For curiosity is a hard taskmaster, sets us to make brick, but allows us no straw, sets us to tread the water and to walk upon the wind; put us to work, but in the dark, and we work, as the spirits are said to do in Minerals; they seem to dig, and cleanse, and sever Metals, but when men come, they find nothing is done. It is a good rule in husbandry (and such rules old Cato called oracles) imbecillior esse debet ager, 
Columel.  quam Agricola, the Farm must not be too great for the Husbandman, but what he may be well able to manure and dress, and the reason is good, quia si fundus praevaleat colliditur Dominus, because if he prevail not, if he cannot manage it, he must needs be at great loss; and it is so in the speculations and works of the mind, those inquiries are most fruitful, and yield a more plentiful increase, which we are able to bring unto the end, which is, truly to resolve ourselves, thus it is, as a little plot of ground well tilled, will yield a fairer crop, and harvest, than many Acres which we cannot husband; for the understanding doth not more foully miscarry, when it it is deceived with false appearances, and sophisms; then when it looks upon, and would apprehend unnecessary and unprofitable objects; and such as are set out of sight; res frugi est sapientia, spiritual wisdom, is a frugal and thirsty thing, sparing of her time; which she doth not wantonly waste, to purchase all knowledge whatsoever, but that which may adorn, and beautify the mind which was made to receive virtue, and wisdom and God himself: to know that which profits not, is next to ignorance; but to be ambitious of impertinent speculations, carries with it the reproach of folly: 
Basil. Hem. 29 ad v●calumn. S. Trin.  what is it then 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Basil speaks, to seek with such diligence for that, which is past finding out?  
And 1. the knowledge of the hour of his coming, is most impertinent, and concerns us not, non est nosirum nosse tempora, It is not for us to know the times; as our days, so the times are in his hands, and he disposeth, and dispenseth them as it pleaseth him, fits a time to every thing, which all the wisdom of the world cannot do. Thou wouldst know when he would take the yoke from off thy neck; 'tis not for thee to know: that which concerns thee, is to possess thy soul with patience, which will make thy yoke easy. Thou wouldst know when he will break the teeth of the ungodly, and wrest the sword out of the hand of them that delight in blood; it is not for thee to know: thy task is to learn to suffer and rejoice, and to make a blessing of Persecution. Thou wouldst know when the world shall be dissolved; why shouldst thou desire to know it? thy labour must be to dissolve the body of sin, and set an end, and period to thy transgressions. Thou wouldst know what hour this Lord will come; It is not for thee to know, but to work in this thy hour, and be ready, and prepared for hsi coming: 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the present, the present time that is thine, and thou must fill it up with thy obedience; that which is to come of what aspect so ever it be, thou must only look upon, and consider as an help, and advantage to thee in thy work. Dominus venturus the Lord will come speaks no more to me then this, to labour and sweat in his vineyard till he come. All the days of my appointed time, will I wait, saith Job. 
Job. 14.14.  There is a time, and an appointed time, and appointed by a God of eternity, and I do not study to calculate, or find out the last minute of it; but expectabo, I will wait, which is but a syllable, but of a large and spreading signification, and takes in the whole duty of man: For what is the life of a Christian but the expectation, the waiting for the coming of the Lord? David indeed desires to know his end and the measure of his days, 
Psal. 39.4.  but he doth not mean, so to calculate them, as Arithmeticians do, and to know a certain and determined number of them, not so to number them, as to tell them at his finger's ends, and say; This will be the last: but himself interprets himself, and hath well explained his own meaning in the last words, Let me know the measure of my days, that I may know how sraile I am, know, not exactly how many, but how few they be; let me so measure them, that I may know and consider they are but few, that in this little time I may strive forward and make a way to eternity. This was the Arithmetic which he desired to have skill in. For it may seem a Paradox, but there is much truth in it; Few men are so fully resolved of their mortality, as to know, Their days are few; we can say indeed that we are but shadows, but the dreams of shadows, but bubbles, but vapours, that we began to die before we were born, and in the womb did move and strive forward towards the gates of death, and we think it no dispargement, because we speak to men of the same mould, who will say the same of themselves, and lay to heart as little as we; for should we pass over Methusalems' age a thousand times, yet when we were drawing even towards our end, we should be ready to conceive a possibility of a longer race, and hope like the Sun to run the same compass again, and though we die every day, yet we are not so fully confirmed in this, that we shall ever die: 
Ep. 26.  Egregia res est condiscere mortem, saith Sen. The best art is the knowledge of our frailty, and he must needs live well, who hath well learned to die, and egregia res est condiscere adventum Domini, 'tis a most useful thing to have learned, and well digested the coming of the Lord; for we cannot take out this as we should, but we must be also perfect in those lessons which may make us fit to meet him, when he come: For the hour of his coming, that's locked up in the treasuries of his wisdom, and he hath left us no key to open it, that we might not so much as hope to find it, and so misspend our thoughts in that which they cannot lay hold on, which should be fastened on the other, to advance and promote our duty: 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, fix that well, which is present, here layout all thy store, all the powers of thy soul, whilst it is time, whilst it is day, whilst it is thy day, make ready for his coming.  

2.  For secondly, though it be in the future tense veniet he will come, though it lie hid, as it were in the womb of time, and we know not when it will be brought to birth, yet at this distance it looks upon us, and hath force enough in itself, to work that fear and caution in us, which the knowledge of the very hour peradventure might not do; we say we believe it, and that is enough; and some have given faith the pre-eminence above knowledge, and count the evidence we have by faith clearer and more convincing, then that we have by demonstration. But if it were not, yet even that, which is but probable in other things doth prevail with us, and is as it were principium motus, the spring, and beginner of all motion to wards it; Lord, what Rhetoric? what commanding eloquence is there in that, which is but probable? nay, many times in that which is most improbable, if it carry any show of probability with it? nay, if it do not, our ardent affections supply all deficiencies in the object, and hurry us along to do that, which when the heat is over, we could easily see, could not be done? how doth love carry us, as it were on the wing, to lay hold of that, which we must needs know, is out of our reach, it is but probable, that industry will make us rich; how do we toil and sweat? It is probable that flattery will lift us up on high, & to make ourselves little, will make us great; Lord how do we strive to mishap, and disguise, and contract ourselves? what dwarves? what minims will we appear? how do we call contumelis favours, and feed on injuries, only because we are old that Potentates will make them Lords, that make themselves their slaves? probability is the hand, that turns every wheel, the intelligence which moves every sphere, and every man in it. Harken to the busy noise of all the world; Behold the hollow eye, the pale, and careful countenance, the speaking and negotiating eye, and the active hand; see men digging sweeting, travelling, shouldering, and treading one another under foot, and if you would know what works all this? Behold it is nothing, but that which hangs in Futurition, that which is but probable, and uncertain! And if probability have such power, and force in other things, why should it not in this, especially the evidence being so fair, and clear, that it is impossible to find out, or set up any better against it, which might raise any doubting in us, and make us disbeleeve it, to a true Believer Dominus veniet, the Lord will come, is enough, nor need he seek any further, a further inquiry, to be assured of the time, is but inquieta inertia, a troublesome sloth and busy negligence, like Ixion's wheel, to turn us about, where we shall never fasten and rest, but be circled about in a giddy, and uneffective motion.  

3.  Thirdly, the knowledge of the very hour can be of no use at all to forward and carry on that, which we are now to do; non prodest scire, sed metuere futura, saith Tull. to know that which is to come, is of no use, but to fear it; for if I know it and not fear it, I do but look upon it as to come, and that doth but leave us settled in our lees, leaves the covetous in the mine, the revenger in his wrath, the wanton in the strumpet's arms; if we confess he will come, and are not startled, what a poor squib would that be, if we should be told, he would come, and come at such an hour: But than what a long hour should we make it? how should we extend and thrust it back to all eternity? yet a little sleep, a little stumber; 
Pro. 6.10  for poverty is in arms, and coming, but not yet come; yet let me grind the poor, saith the oppressor; yet let me crown myself with roses, saith the luxurious; yet a little more dalliance saith the wanton; yet let me boast in mischief, saith the man of power; for whilst we consider things in the future, fit ut illud futurum semper sit futurum, imo fortassis nunquam futurum, saith the Father, that which is to come will be always to come, nay, peradventure we shall think at last, that it will never come; All future's are contingents with us, and at last are nothing. The time flies away and will not stay its course, neither for the delaier, nor the uncautelous, and therefore our Lord who knows what is sufficient and best for us would not let us know any more, quod à Christo discitur totum est, that which he hath taught us is all, that we can learn, if it would add but one cubit to our stature, and growth in grace, he would have left it behind, written in the fairest character, but it is hid from our eyes, for our advantage, that by the doubtful and pendulous expectation of the hour, our faith might be put to the trial, whether it be a languishing dead faith, or fides armata, a faith in arms, 
Tert. de Anima c. 33.  and upon its watch, ut semper diem observemus, dum semper ignoramus, that whilst we know not, when 'twill be, it may present itself unto us every moment, to affront, and awe us in every motion, and be as our taskmaster to oversee us, and bind us to our duty that we may fulfil our work, and work out our salvation with fear and trembling, that our whole life may be as the vigils, and Eve, and the hour of his coming, the first hour of an everlasting Holiday.  
Lastly, there is no reason why it should be known, neither in respect of the good, nor of the evil; for the good, satis est illis credere, it is enough for them that they believe; they walk by faith, saith the Apostle, 
2 Cor. 5.7.  and in their way behold the promises, and comminations of the he Lord, and in them as in a glass behold heaven, and hell, the horror of the one, and the glory of the other; and this sight of the object, which they have by the eye of faith, is as powerful to work in them obedience, as if Heaven itself should fly open, and discover all unto them: to the true believer Christus venturus, Christ to come, and Christ now coming in the clouds, are in effect, but one object; for Faith sees plainly the one, in the other, the last hour, in the first, the World at an end, in the prediction.  
But to Evil, and wicked men, to men, who harden themselves in sin, 
Jud. Ep. v. 10.  no evidence is clear enough, and light itself is darkness: what they naturally know, and what they can preach unto themselves, in that thy corrupt themselves, and give their senses leave to lead them to all uncleanness, whilst reason which should command, is put behind, and never harkened to; are as bruit Beasts in spite of all they have of man within them; and if they believe his coming, and will not turn back and bow, and obey their Reason, they would remain the same beasts or worse, though they knew the very hour of his coming. After all those judgements Pharaoh was still the same, after the rivers turned into blood, after frogs and lice, after the plague on man and beast, after every plague which came thick, as line upon line, precept upon precept, after all these, the effect and conclusion was, 
Exod. 10.27.  Pharaoh hardened his heart, was Pharaoh still, the same Tyrant till he was drowned in the Red-sea: Balaam though the Ass forbade his folly, and the Angel forbade it, though the sword was drawn against him, and brandished in his very face, that he bowed on the ground, and fell flat on his face, yet he risen again, and took courage to betray the Israelites, to that sin, with the Midianitish women, which brought a curse upon them, and death upon himself, for he was slain for it with the sword. Exod. 31.8. what evidence can prevail with, what terror can move a wicked man, hardened in his sin? who knows well enough, and can draw the picture of Christ coming, and look upon it, and study to forget it, and then put on an ignorance of his own knowledge; and though he know, he will, yet persuade himself, he will not come, and he that can thus stand out against his own knowledge in the one, may be as daring and resolute in the other, and venture on, though Hell itself should open her mouth against him, and breath vengeance in his face; for howsoever we pretend ignorance, yet the most of the sins which we commit, we commit against our knowledge. Tell the foolish man, that the lips of the Harlot will bit like a Cockatrice, he knows it well enough, and yet will kiss them; tell the intemperate, that wine is a mocker, he will taste, though he know he shall be deceived: the cruel oppressor will say, and sigh it out, that the Lord is his God; and yet eat up his people, as he eats bread; who knows not that we must do to others, as we would have others do to us, and yet how many are there (I may ask the question) that make it good in practice? who knows not what his duty is, and that the wages of sin is death? and yet how many seek it out, and are willing to to travail with it, though they die in the birth? cannot the thought of judgement move us, and will the knowledge of a certain hour awake us? will the hardened sinner cleave to his sin, though he know the Lord is coming, and will he let it go and fling it from him, if the set determined hour were upon record? No: 
2 Tim. 3.13.  they wax worse, and worse saith the Apostle, earth is a fairer place to them, than Heaven itself, nor will they part with one vanity, nor bid the devil avoid, though they knew the very hour, (I might say) though they now saw him coming in the clouds; For will't not thou believe God, when he comes as near thee, as in wisdom he can, and his pure Essence, and Infinite Majesty will suffer? and art thou assured thou shalt believe him, if he would please to come so near, as thy sick Fancy would draw him? Indeed this is but aegri somnium, the dream of a sick, and ill affected mind, that complains of want of Light, when it shines in thy face, for that Information which we so long for, we cannot have, or if we could, it would work no more Miracles, then that doth, which we already have, but leave us the same Lethargiques', which we were; in a word; if his doctrine will not move us, the Knowledge (which he will not Teach) will have little force, and though it were written in Capital Letters, at such a time, and such a day, and in such an Hour, the Lord will come, we should sleep on as securely as before, and never awake from this Death in sin till the last Trump.  
To look once more upon the Non nostis horam, 
Conclus.  and so conclude: and we may learn even from our Ignorance of the Hour, thus much; That as his coming is uncertain, so it will be sudden, as we cannot know when he will come, so he will come, when we do not think on't; 
Tert. Apol. c. 33.  cum Totius mundi motu, cum horrore orbis, cum planctu omnium, si non Christianorum, saith Tert. with the shaking of the whole world, with the Horror and amazement of the Universe, every man howling, and lamenting, but those few, that little flock, which did wait for his coming. It is presented to us in three resemblances. 1. Of Travel coming upon a Woman with Child. 
1 Thess. 5.2,3. Luk. 21.35.  2. Of a Thief in the night; and 3ly, Of a snare. Now the Woman talks, and is cheerful; now she layeth her hands to the spindle, and her hands hold the distaff, and now she groans, Now the Mammonist locks his God up in his chest, lays him down to sleep, and dreams of nothing else: and now the Thief breaks in and spoils him. Now our feet are at liberty, and we walk at large; walk on pleasantly, as in fair places; Now the bitterness of Death is past, and now the snare takes us. Now we fancy new delights, send our Thoughts afar off, dream of Lordships & Kingdoms. Now we enlarge our Imaginations as Hell, Anticipate our Honours, and wealth, and gather riches in our mind, before we grasp them in our Hand; Now we are full, now we are Rich, now we reign as Kings; now we beat our fellow-servants, and beat them in his name; and in this type and representation of Hell: entitle ourselves to eternity of bliss, are cursed, and call ourselves Saints, and now, even now he comes.  
Now; sudden surprisals do commonly startle, and amaze us, but after a while, after some pause and deliberation, we recover ourselves, and take heart to slight that, which drove us from ourselves, and left us as in a Dream, or rather dead: But this brings either that Horror, or that joy, which shall enter into our very bones, settle, and incorporate itself with us, and dwell in us for evermore. Other assaults, that are made upon us unawares, make some mark, & impression in us, but such as may soon be wiped out: we look upon them, and being not well acquainted with their shapes, they disturb our Fancy; but either at the sight of the next object we lose them, or our Reason chaseth them away, the Tempest rises, 
Aul. Gell. N●ct. Art. l. 19 c. 1.  & the Philosopher is pale, but his Reason will soon call bis blood again into his cheeks: he cannot prevent these sudden and violent motions, but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, he doth not consent, he doth not approve these unlooked for apparitions and Fantasies; he doth not change his Counsel, but is constant to himself: sudden joy, and sudden fear with him are as short, as sudden. But this coming of our Lord, as it is sudden, so it brings omnimodam Desolationem, an universal Horror, and amazement, seizes upon all the Powers and Faculties of the Soul, chains them up, and confines them to loathsome and Terrible Objects, from which no change of Objects can divert, no wisdom redeem them. No serenity after this Darkness, no joy after this trembling, no refreshing after this consternation; for no coming again, after this coming, for it is the last.  
And now, to conclude: veniet Fratres, veniet, 
Aug. Ser. 140. de Temp.  sed vide quomodo te inveniet, saith Aust. He shall come, He shall come, my brethren: his coming is uncertain, and his coming is sudden; it will concern us to take heed how he finds us, when he comes. Oh, let him not find us digging of Pitts, spreading of nets to catch our Brethren, spinning the Spider's web, wearying and washing ourselves in vanity; let him not find us in strange apparel, in spotted Garments, in Garments stained with blood; Let not this Lord find thee in Rebellion against him; This Saviour find thee a Destroyer; This Christ, who should anoint thee, find thee bespotted of the world; Let not an humble Lord find thee swelling, a meek Lord find thee raging, a merciful Lord find thee cruel; let not an innocent lord find thee boasting in mischief; let not the Son of man, Find thee a Beast; But to day, if you will hear his voice, harden not your hearts; This is your Day, and this day you may work out Eternity; this is your hour to look into yourselves, o be jealous of yourselves, vereri omnia opera, to be afraid of every word, work and Thought, every enterprise you take in hand: for whatsoever you are saying, whatsoever you are doing whatsoever you are imagining; whilst you Act, whilst you speak, before you speak, whilst you think, and that thought is a Promise, or prophecy of Riches and Delights, and Honours, which are in the approach, and ready to meet you, or a seal and Confirmation of those glories which are already with you; whilst you think, as the Prophet David speaks, That your Houses shall continue for ever, even than he may come upon you, and then this Inward Thought, all your thoughts perish, or return again upon you like Furies, to last and torment you for ever. And therefore, to conclude; since the Premises are plain, the Evidence fair; since he is a Lord, and will come to Judge us: Since he will certainly come; since the Time of his coming is uncertain, and since it is sudden; He is no Christian, he is no man, but hath prostituted that which makes him so, his Reason to his sense, and Brutish part, who cannot draw this Conclusion to himself; That he must therefore watch, which is in the next place to be considered.     

THE SIXTEENTH SERMON.  MATTH. 24.42. 
Watch therefore, etc.  

The last PART.  
We have seen Christ our lord at the Right Hand of God; considered him, First, as our Lord. Secondly, as coming. Thirdly, as keeping from our eye and knowledge, the Time of his coming; and now, what Inference can we make? He is a Lord, and shall we not fear him? To come, and shall we not expect him? To come at an hour we know not, and shall we not Watch? This every one of them naturally, and necessarily affords, and no other conclusion can be drawn from them; but when we consult with flesh, and blood, we force false conclusions, even from the truth itself, and to please and flatter our sensual part, conclude against Nature, to destroy ourselves. Sensuality is the greatest Sophister, that is; works Darkness out of Light, poison out of Physic, sin out of Truth: See what Paralogismes she makes; God is merciful, therefore presume; he is patiented, Therefore provoke him. He delayeth his coming; we may now beat our fellow-Servants, and eat and drink with the Drunken; It is uncertain when he will come, therefore he will never come; This is the reasoning of Flesh and blood; This is the Devil's Logic; and therefore, that we be not deceived, nor deceive ourselves with these Fallacies, behold, here Wisdom itself hath shown us a more excellent way, and drawn the Conclusion to our hands; Vigilate ergo: He is a Lord, and to come, and at an Hour you know not of; Watch therefore.  
And this word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, vigilate, is verbum vigilans, as Aug. speaks, a waking busy, stirring word, and implies, as the Scholiast tells us, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, all manner of care and Circumspection; and what are all the Exhortations in Scripture, but a Commentary, and Exposition of this Duty? There we find it rendered by awaking, working, running, striving, Fasting, Praying; we shall find it to be Repentance, Faith, Spiritual Wisdom, that golden chain, wherein all virtues and Graces, that Vniversitas Donorum, as Tert. speaks, that Academy, that world of Spiritual Gifts meet, and are united; when we awake, we watch to look about, and see what danger is near; when we work, we watch, till our work be brought to perfection; That no Trumpet scatter our Alms; no Hypocrisy corrupt our Fast, no unrepented sin deny our prayers, no wand'ring Thought defile our Chastity, no false fire kindle our zeal; no Lukewarmness dead our Devotion, when we strive, we watch that lust which is most predominant; and Faith, if it be not Dead, hath a restless Eye, an eye that never sleeps, which makes us even here on Earth like unto the Angels; for so Anastasius defining an Angel, calls him a reasonable Creature, but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, such a one as ver sleeps. Cord vigila, Fide vigila, spe vigila, charitate vigila, saith St. August. an active Faith, a waking Heart, a lively hope, a spreading Charity, assiduity, and perseverance in the work of this Lord, these make up the vigilate, the watching here; These are the seals; Faith, Hope and Charity, set them on, and the Watch is sure.  
But this is to General; To give you yet a more particular acaccount, we must consider. 1. That God hath made man a Judge, and Lord of all his Actions, and given him that freedom, and Power, which is Libripens emancipatià Deo Boni, 
Tert. l. 2. cont. Martion.  which doth hold as it were the balance, and weigh, and poise both good and evil, and may touch or strike which Scale it please, that either Good shall outweigh Evil, or Evil good (for man is not evil by Necessity, or Chance, but by his will alone) See, I have set before thee, this Day, Life and Good, Death and Evil, Therefore choose Life. Deut. 30.19. Secondly, he hath placed an apparency of some good, on that which is evil, by which he may be wooed and enticed to it; and an apparency of smart, and evil on that which is Good, Difficulty, Calamity, persecution, by which he may be frighted from it. But than thirdly, he hath given him an understanding, by which he may discover the horror of Evil, though coloured over, and dressed with the best advantage to Deceive; and behold the Beauty, and Glory of that, which is good, though it be discoloured and defaced with the blackness: and Darkness of this world: He hath given him a Spirit, 
Prov. 20.27.  which the Wise man calls the Candle of the Lord searching the inward parts of the belly; his Reason, that should sway and govern all the parts of the body and faculties of the Soul; by which he may see, to eschew evil, and choose that which is good, adhere to the Good, though it distaste the sense, and fly from evil, though it flatter it: By this we discover he Enemy, and by this we conquer him; By this we see danger, and by this we avoid it: By this we see Beauty in Ashes, and vanity in Glory: And, as other Creatures are so made, and framed, that without any guide or Leader, without any agitation or business of the mind, they turn from that which is Hurtful, and choose that which is Agreeable with their Nature, as the Cocles, which, saith Pliny, carent omni alto sensu, quam C●bi & periculi, 
C. 9 N. 1 Q. c. 30.  have no sense at all, but of their food, and of Danger, and naturally seek the one, and fly the other: So this Light, this Power is set up in man, which by discourse, and comparing one thing with another, the beginning with the end; and shows, with Realities, and fair Promises, with bitter effects, may show him a way to escape the one, and pursue life through rough and rugged ways, even through the valley of Death itself. And this is it, which we call vigilancy or watchfulness; Attend tibi ipsi, saith Moses, 
Deut. 4.9. Tom. 1.  Take heed to thyself, and Basil wrote a whole Oration, or Sermon on that Text, and considers man, as if he were nothing else but mind and soul, and the Flesh were the Garment, which clothed and covered it; and that it was compassed about, with Beauty, and Health, Sickness and deformity Friends and Enemies, Riches and Poverty; from which the mind is to guard, and defend itself; that neither the Gloty nor Terror of outward Objects have any power or influence on the mind, to make a way through the flesh to deface, and ruin it, and put out its light, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Take heed to thyself prae omni custodiâ serva cor tuum; Keep thy heart with Diligence, ab omni cautione, so 'tis rendered by Mercer, out of the Hebrew, from every thing that is to be avoided, ab omni vinculo so others, from every tye, or bond, which may shackle, or hinder thee in the performance of that Duty, to which thou art obliged, whether it be a chain of Gold, or of Iron, of pleasure, or pain; whether it be a fair, and well promising; or a black Temptation; keep it with diligence, and keep it from these Encumbrances: and the reason is given; For out of it are the Issues of Life, processiones vitarum, the Issues, and Proceed of many lives: for so many Conquests, as we gain over Temptations, so many lively motions we feel animated, and full of God, which increase our Crown of joy: All is comprehended in that of our Saviour, 
Math. 26.41.  Watch, and pray, lest you enter into Tentation: If you watch not, your heart will lie open, and Tentations will Enter, and as many Deaths will issue forth: Evil Thoughts, Fornications, Murders, Adulteries, Blasphemy, as so many Locusts out of the Bottomless Pit  
To watch then, 
Philip. 2.  is to fix our mind on that, which concerns our Peace. To work out our Salvation with fear and trembling, to perfect holiness in the Fear of God, 
2 Cor. 7.1. Heb. 12.28. 2 ep. John 8.  to serve him with Reverence and Godly Fear, That we lose not those things which we have wrought, so that by the Apostle, our Caution, and watchfulness is made up of Reverence and Fear; and these two are like the two Pillars in the Porch of the Temple of Solomon, Jachin and Boaz. 1. of Kings and the second, to establish and strengthen our Watch; For this certainly must needs be a Sovereign Antidote against sin, and a forcible motive, to make us look about ourselves, when we shall Think that our Lord is present every where, and seethe, and knoweth all Things, when we consider him, as a witness, who shall be our Judge; That all we do, we do, as Hilary speaks, in Divinitatis sinu, in his very presence, and Bosom, when we deceive ourselves, and, when we deceive our brethren, when we sell our Lord to our Fears, or our Hopes, when we betray him in our craft, crucify him in our Revenge, defile, and spit upon him in our uncleanness, we are even then in his Presence; if we did firmly believe it, we would not suffer our eyes to sleep, nor our eyelids to slumber; For how careful are we, how anxious, how solicitous in our behaviour? how scrupulous of every word, and look and gesture? what Critics are we in our deportment, if we stand before them whom we call our betters, indeed our fellow Dust and Ashes? and shall we make our face, as Adamant in the presence of our Lord? shall we stand Idle, and sport, and play the wantoness before him? shall we beat down his Altars? blaspheme his Name? beat our Fellow-servants before his face? shall we call him to be witness to a Lie? make him an Advocate for the greatest sin, suborn his Providence to own our impiety; his Wisdom to favour our Craft; his permission to consecrate, and ratify our sin? can we do, what a Christian eye cannot look upon, which reason, and Religion condemns? and even Pagans tremble at? can we do it, and do it before his Face, whose Eye is pure, 
Tertul. de Testim. animae. c. 2. Vnde haec tibi anima non Christiana?  and Ten thousand times brighter than the Sun? Deus videt, and Deus judicat, God will see, and God will Judge, is taken out of the Common Treasury of Nature, and the Heathens themselves have found it there, who speak it as their Language: And, if his awful Eye will not open ours, our Lethargy is mortal: we are Infidels if we believe it not; and if we do believe it, yet dare do those things, which afflict his eye, we are worse than Infidels.  
Let us then look upon him: think him present, and stand upon our guard, let us stand in awe and not sin; let one fear call upon another; the fear of this Lord, the fear of cautelousness, and circumspection, which is as our angel keeper, to keep us in all our ways, in the smooth and even ways of peace, and in the rough and rugged ways of adversity: to lead us against our enemies, which are more than the hairs of our head, as many, as there are temptations in the world, and help us to defeat them, is our best buckler to keep off the darts of Satan, and as a Canopy to keep our virtues from soil; to keep our liberality cheerful, our chastity fresh and green, our devotion fervent, our Religion pure, and undefiled, to waste the body of sin, and perfect and secure our obedience, in a word, to do that which the Heathens thought their Goddess Pellonia did, to drive, and chase all evil out of our coasts. For let us well weigh and consider it; let us look upon our Enemies, the world with all its pageantry, the flesh with all its lusts, the Devil with all his snares, and wiles, and enterprises, let us look upon him coming towards us, either as an Angel of light to deceive us, or as a Lion to devour us, and then let us consider out Lord and Captain, 
Heb. 3.1.  the Apostle and Highpriest of our profession, opening the gates of Heaven unto us, man feasting his glory, streaming forth his light, ready with his strength, free in his assistance, pouring forth his Grace, now triumphing over these our enemies, leaving us only the chase, and pursuit of them, and to fill up 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 some small matter, that is behind, 
Coloss. 1.25.  which is nothing in respect of that which he both did, and suffered; let us lay this to heart, and view it well; all our dangers and all our advantages, and we shall find, that it is not the strength, nor multitude of our adversaries, nor yet our own weakness and infirmity (which we so willingly acknowledge) 'tis not the craft of Satan (for we have wisdom itself on our side) 'tis not his strength, or power (for he hath none) but our want of watchfulness, and circumspection, that gives us the blow, and strikes us on the ground. For want of this, our first Parents fell in Paradise; 
Ep. ad Olymp.  and had certainly fallen (saith Saint Chrysostom) had there been no Serpent, no Tempter at all; for he that watcheth not, tempts the Tempter Himself, who would not assault us so often, did we not invite him, would not fling a dart towards us, did he see us in our Armour, did he see us with our buckler, and upon our watch. By this Adam sell, and by this Adam's posterity after the fall recovered their state, escaped the corruption, which is in the world, and fled from the wrath to come, so necessary is it for a Christian, that had we no other defence but this, yet we could not be overcome, Fortis saepe victus est, cautus rarissimè the strong man hath often ruined with his own strength, but he that stands upon his guard, though the adversary lay hard at him, yet is never overthrown: we may look back with comfort upon the eternal purpose, and decree of God, I mean to save penitent believers; but we must give diligence to make our calling, 
2 Pet. 1.10.  our election sure; we cannot but magnify the Grace of God, which bringeth salvation: but we must work it out with fear and trembling; 
Philip. 2.12.  we cannot deny the power of the Gospel; but 'tis watchfulness, that makes it the savour of life unto life; 
2 Cor. 2.16. 2 Tim. 4.8.  we look for a crown that is laid up, but 'tis watchfulness that must put it on.  
And now having as it were, set the watch, we must next give you the particular orders to be observed in our watch, and we must frame and fashion them, not only by the majesty of the Lord, which is to come, but the power, and force, and manner of working of those temptations, which we are to cope with all, and watch against that; when they compass us about, we may find a way and escape them, solus Christianus novit Satanam, saith Tert. 'tis the character of a Christian alone, and 'tis peculiar to him, 
Veget. l. v.  to know the Devil, and his enterprises, & difficilè vincitur, qui potest de suis & adversarij copiis judicare, saith Vegetius, it is a very hard matter to overcome him, who truly knoweth his own strength, and the strength of his adversary.  
And first, we must know ourselves; how we are framed and fashioned, how the hand of God hath built us up, and we shall see, that he hath ever laid us open to tentations, and set us up, as Job speaks, as a mark, for the enemy to shoot at; that man is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 one creature, 
Naz or. 38.  but made up of two different natures, the flesh, and the spirit; and put into this world, which is a shaped of tentations, hung full with vanities, which offer themselves, and that with some importunity to the eye, and ear, and every sense he hath: into which when God first put him, he made him upright, 
Eccles. 7.29.  but with all mutable; the root of which mutability, was his will; by which he might incline to either side, either bargain, or pass by, 
Legem dedit Deus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Naz or. 38.  either embrace temptations, or resist them. In hoc est lex constituta, non excludens, sed probans libertatem, saith Tertul. To this end a Law was enacted, not taking away, but proving and trying the liberty which we have, either freely to obey, or freely to transgress, for else why should he enact a Law? For the will of man looks equally on both; and he being thus built up, did owe to his maker absolute, and constant obedience, and obedient he could not be, if he had not been thus built up. To this end, his understanding and will were to be exercised with arguments, and with occasions which might discover the resolution, and the choice, and election of man. Now these arguments, and occasions are that, which we call temptations; which though they naturally light upon the outward man, yet do they formally aim at the inward, and are nothing, do nothing, till they seize upon the will, which may either join with the sensitive part, against the reason, which makes us to every good work reprobate; or else join with our reason against our sensual appetite, which works in us, a conformity to the will of God; for he wills nothing to be done which right reason will not have us do. The will is that alone, which draws, and turns these temptations, either to a good end, by watchfulness and care; or by supine negligence, turns them to a bad; turns them from that end, for which they were permitted, and ordained, and so makes Satan's darts more fiery, his enterprises more subtle; his occasions more powerful, and his persuasions more persuasive, then indeed they are: so that what God ordained for our trial, and crown, by our security and neglect, is made a means to bring on our downfall, and condemnation.  
We must therefore in the midst of temptations, as in a School, learn to know ourselves; and in the next place, to know our enemies, and now they ●ork, and mine against us, examine those temptations, which make toward us, lest we judge of them by their outside, look upon them, and so be taken with a look: lest (as the Romans observed of the barbarous Nations, that being ignorant of the art of engining, when they were besieged, and shut up, they would stand still, and look upon the Enemy working on in the mine, not understanding, quò illa pertinerent, quaeex longinquo instruebantur, what it meant, or wherefore those things were prepared, which they saw a far off, and at distance, till the Enemy came so near, as to blow them up, and destroy them) so we also behold temptations with a careless and regardless eye, and not knowing what they mean, suffer them to work on, to steal nearer, and nearer upon us, till they enter into our souls, and dwell there, and so take full possession of us.  
And first, we may lay it as a ground; That nothing properly provoketh itself, as the fire doth not provoke itself to burn nor the Sun to shine; for the next and necessary causes of things, are rather efficients, than provocations, which are always external either to the person, or principal, or part, which is the principal and special agent; and so the will of man doth consummate, and finish sin, but provoketh it not, but is enticed to that evil, or frighted from that which is good, by some outward object, which first presents itself unto the sense, which carries it to the fancy, which conveys it to the understanding, whence ariseth that fight, and contention between the inferior part of the soul, and the superior, between the sensual appetite and the reason, not to be decided, or determined but by the will, and when the will like Moses holdeth up its hands, as it were, and is steady and strong, the reason prevaileth, and when it lets them down, the sense. The senses than are, (as Hierom calls them) fenestra animae, the windows of the soul, through which tentations enter to flatter and woo the fancy and affections, to join with the principal faculties of the soul, to beget that sin, which begetteth death, and if you will observe how they work by the senses upon the soul, you will soon find that they do it not, by force and battery, but by allurement, and speaking it fair, or else by frowns and terrors; that there is no such force in their arguments which spiritual wisdom, and vigilancy may not assoil; that there is no such beauty on them, which may not be loathed, no such horror, which we may not slight and contemn.  
And first, they work us occasions of sin: and all the power, that occasion hath, is but to show itself, and if it kill, it is as the Basilisk, by the eye, by looking towards us, or indeed, rather by our looking towards it. Occasion is a creature of our own making; we give it being, or it were not: and it is in our power as the Apostle speaks 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to cut it off. 
2 Cor. 11.12.  When we see the golden wedg, we know it is but a clod of earth: we see beauty and can call it the colour, and symmetry of flesh and blood, of dust and ashes; and unless we make it so; it is no more; indeed, we commonly say, occasio facit furem, that occasion maketh a thief; but (the truth is) it is the thief that makes the occasion; for the object being let in by the senses, calls out the soul, which frames and fashioneth it, and bringeth it to what form it please; maketh beauty a net, 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Bas. in ps. 1.  and riches a snare; and therefore Bonum est non tangere, it is not safe to see or touch; for there is danger in a very touch, in a cast of the eye, and upon a look or touch, the Soul may fly out to meet it, and be entangled unawares, utinam nec videre possimus, quod facere nobis nefas est, we may sometimes make it our wish, 
Hieron.  not to see that, which we may not do, not to touch that which may be made an occasion of sin, not to look upon wine, when it is red, nor the strange woman, when she smiles.  
For in the second place; they are not only made occasions of sins, but are dressed up, and trimmed by the father of lies (who takes up a chamber in our Fancy,) in that shape and form, in those fair appearances, which may deceive us: there is a kind of Rhetoric, and eloquence in them, but not that of the Orators of Greece, which was solid, and rational, but that of the later Sophisters, which consisted in elegancies, and figures, and Rhetorical colours, that which Plato calls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 flattery, and popular eloquence: for as they who deliver up themselves to fortune, and tread the ways to honour, and the highest place, do commonly begin there with smiles, where they mean to shake a whip; and cringe, and bow, and flatter the common people, whom they intent to enslave, stroke and clap them, and so get up and ride the Beast to their journeys end: so do these tentations insinuate, and win upon the weaker part of man, whilst the stronger is left to watch: work upon that part first, which is easier to be seduced, than the reason or will, which must needs deny them admittance, if they came, and presented themselves in their own shape, and were not first let in by the senses and Fancy, and there coloured over, and beautified, and in this dress sent up unto them. Indeed the senses are merely passive, receive the object, and no more, the eye doth see, and the ear hear, and the hands feel, and their work and office is transacted; and thus, if I be watchful, I may see vanity, and detest it: I may hear blasphemy and abhor it, I may touch, and not be defiled: but as the Prophet Jeremy speaks, Death comes in at the windows, 
Jer. 9.21.  and so by degrees enters into the palace of our mind, and as the Civilians tell us, possessio acquiritur, etiamsi in angulo tantum ingrediamur, we take possession of a house though we come but into a corner of it, so through our negligence, and unwariness, many times, nay, most times, it falls out that when the temptation hath gained an entrance at the eye, or ear, it presseth forward to the more retired and more active faculties, and at last gains dominion over the whole man: for from the senses it is transmitted to the Fancy, which hath a Creating faculty, to make what she pleaseth, of what she list, to put new forms and shapes upon objects; to make gods of clay, to make that delightful, which in itself is grievous, that desirable which is loathsome; that fair and beautiful, which is full of horror; To-set up a Golden calf, and say it as a good, & habentur phantasmata pro cognitis, these shows and apparitions are taken for substances, 
August. lib. music. c. 11.  these airy phantasms, for well-grounded conclusions, and the mind of man doth so apply itself unto them, ut dum in his est cogitatio, ea intellectu cerni arbitramur, that what is but in the fancy, and wrapped up in a thought, is supposed to be seen by the eye of the understanding, in the same shape: what we think is so, and with us (in these our distempers) opinion and knowledge are one and the same thing: and this inflames, and mads the affections, that they forget their objects, and look and run wild another way: our hatred is placed on that which we should love, and our love on that, which we should detest, we fear that which we should embrace, and we hope for that, which we should fear, we are angry with a Friend, and well pleased with an enemy: Now profaneness sounds better, 
Hilar. in Psal. 118.  than a Hymn, or Psalm of Thanksgiving; a Fable is more welcome, than the Oracles of God, et blandior auri species, quam hominis, aut coeli, aut lucis, and a piece of Gold is a more glorious sight, than man, the Image of his Maker, or the Heaven, wherein he dwells, or the Light itself; so true is that of the Orator, 
Quintil l. 10. c. 3.  aliud agere mentem cogunt oculi, by this means, the eye diverts the mind of man from its proper work, that it cannot attend and busy itself to discern betwixt Good and evil, and so watch, and stand upon its Guard.  
I called Tentations not only Occasions, but Arguments, but such Arguments, which as I told you, conclude not & beget not knowledge, but opinion, & prevail not with wise men, but with fools, who commonly for want of Circumspection, entertain, & swallow down uncertain things for those which are certain, & that which is doubtful, for that which is true. They who have wisdom for their guide, judge of things, 
Arist. Sophist. Elench. c. 12.  〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, according as they are in themselves, according to the Truth; attempt nothing, do nothing upon Opinion, or a bare appearance, but before they make Choice, do weigh and examine the Object: but uncautelous, and unadvised men do but see, and presently embrace that, which was most deformed in itself, and had nothing to commend itself to them, but the fucus and paint, which themselves laid on. Good God, how friendly and familiar are we with that, which pleaseth the eye and fancy, 
Magna ista, quia parvi sumus, credinus. Sen. Praef. ad N.Q.  before the reason hath looked upon it? Take all the sins which we commit, what better ground or Foundation have they, on which they rise to that visible height, then False opinion? Our Ambition soars, and mounts aloft with this thought, as with a wing; That Honour will make us, as Gods: Our Covetousness digs and sweats with this assurance; That Riches are the best Friend. Our revenge is furious and bloody, because we think, That to suffer is Cowardice, we run after evils, and study for a Curse, for some glimpse, or show it hath of some great blessing; And we  on the earth, which is fading, and whose fashion passeth away for some resemblance we think it hath to Heaven and Eternity, Et inambus phant asmatibus tanquam pictis epulis reficimur, 
Aug de verâ Religi. c. 51.  and these vain imaginations, These Dreams of Happiness, are but as a painted Banquet; for as Junkets in a Picture may delight the eye, but not fill the stomach, so do these sudden, and weak conceptions tickle and please the fancy, perhaps, but bring leanness into the soul, and leave it empty and poor: And no marvel. For when the sense is thus pleased, when the fancy hath sported and played with that which delighted the sense; the Affections grow unruly, and reason is swallowed up in Victory, so that God seemeth to be the enemy, and the Devil a Friend, bringing good news unto us, and speaking pleasing Things to us, such as are Music to our ears, whereas God seems to come in Thunder, with Terror, and command, to drive us to our watch: providing a knife for our throat, shutting up the eye, cutting off the right hand, muzling up the mouth, that it speak no Guile, writing sad Characters upon that, which our sense, and Fancy had painted, and dressed up; as Touch not, Taste not, Handle not.  
Now that Temptations work thus by the sense, and Enter, and make their passage into the inward man, is evident not only in those grosser sins, which turn the very soul itself into flesh, nam witted a anima libidine, fit Caro, saith the Father, for when the soul is polluted with lust, it loseth its spirituality, and is transubstantiated as it were into Flesh) but it is seen in those which are more retired, and inward to the Soul; not only in the Practice of our Life, but the Errors of our Doctrine; and on this ground Saint Paul puts Heresies into his black Catalogue, 
Gal. 5.20.  and numbers them amongst the works of the Flesh. For if we look upon those who are the Authors, and Fomentors of Error, we shall find that they wilfully shut their eyes, and ears against the Truth, which offers itself, and bespeaks them with Arguments, and reasons undeniable, and decline to falsehood, by leaning rather to that which is convenient, then that which is true, harkening more to earthly and sensual motives, then to the voice of God which told them, This is the way. Honour, and Riches, and love of this world make up that body of Divinity, which must be a Directory for others to walk by, the eye reads the Text, and the eye lets in the Interpretation; for the love that I delight in, is urgent with me, and persuades me to understand it so, as it may favour and Countenance that Love.  
Thus do Tentations both to sin, and error creep in at these doors, and inlets of the senses, and like Thiefs steal in by night, coloured over with the pleasures, and clouded with the pomp of the world, and so find easy admittance, and steal away the Truth, and Love of God out of our hearts, whilst we sleep.  
And if a fair Temptation do not make entrance with a smile, a bitter and grievous Temptation may force a passage with its Horror. For thus according to their divers and several aspects, they work both upon the Irascible, and Concupiscible Power; If an Enemy be loud against us, we have a Tempest within us; if Jacob hath the blessing, Esau hates him; At the sight of Beauty, if I take not heed, my Love gins to kindle at the next look, it Flames; The approach of danger strikes me with fear; nay, a shadow, and representation will do it; I may take a Promontory for a Navy, and a field of Thistles, for a body of Pikes; not only that which is true, but that which is Feigned; That which is but colour, which is but round, which is but a superficies, but an apparition, but a shadow, being carelessly let in, and entertained, may raise this Tumult and Sedition in the Soul: a fair promising Temptation comes upon parley, and treaty, and conditions, insinuates and wins upon us with its smiles and flatteries, but a fearful, and boy sterous Temptation, playeth upon us with all its Artillery, with smart, and shame, and poverty, and Imprisonment, and Death, makes forward with a kind of force and violence, 
T●ll. Offi. 1.  Et tumultuantes de gradu dcijcit, and overthrows us with some noise. And as the senses convey the Tentations, so do the Affections, if we watch them not, and suppress them, make sensible alterations in the heart, and make themselves visible to the very Eye, 
Ardent, intenduntur, humectant, connivent hinc illae misericordrae Lacrymae. Plin. Nat. H. l. 11. c. 37.  profectò saith Pliny, in oculis animus inhabitat, the mind dwells in the eye, there it is visible to be seen; in its joy it leapeth there, in its grief it languisheth, in its fear it droopeth there, in its Anger it threatens there, in its Hope it looks out cheerfully, and in its Despair, it sinks in again, and leaves the living man with no more motion, than a Carcase. The heart of man changeth his countenance, saith the Wise man; If we stand not upon our Guard, the state, and peace of our mind will soon be overthrown, Respexit oculis (saith St. Amb.) et sensum mentis evertit os libavit, & crimen retulit, the man did but look back, and his mind was shaken, he did but open his ear, and lost a good intention, he did but lightly Touch, and shadow the Object, and took in a sin, he did but Touch, and was on fire.  
You see now the force and strength of the Enemy, you see him in his mine, and you see him in his March, with his flatteries and Menacies, with his glories, and Terrors, with his occasions and Arguments, and if to these you oppose your Prudency and watchfulness, your Fortitude, and Christian Resolution, you put him to flight, or Tread him under your foot.  

1.  For first, 
A. Gel. Noct. Att. L. 19 c. 2.  Temptations may enter the senses without sin, for to behold the Object, to Touch or Taste (which are called belluini sensus, our more Brutish senses) is not to commit sin, 
Tertul de Coron. Mil. c. 5.  because God himself hath thus ordered, and framed the senses by their several instruments and Organs, auditum in auribus fodit, visum in ceulis accendit, gustum in ore conclusit, saith the Father, he hath kindled up light in the eyes, he hath digged the hollow of the Ear, for hearing, and hath shut up the Taste in the mouth, or palate, and hath given man his senses very fit for the trial, and reward of virtue; for as he made the eye to see, so he made every thing in the world to be seen, Frustra two essent si non viderentur, saith Amor. they were to no End, if they were not to be seen, and seen they may be to our Comfort, and to our peril, and as Temptations may enter in at the Eye or Ear, or any of the other senses, so we may make them the matter of virtue, as well as the occasion: in a word, make a Covenant with our eye, bridle our Taste, bind our Touch, purge our ears, and so sanctify, and Consecrate every sense unto the Lord, which is indeed to watch.  

2.  Secondly, They may enter the Thoughts, and be received into the imagination, and yet, if we set our Watch, not overcome us; for as yet they are but, as it were, in their march, bringing up their forces, but have made no battery, or breach into the soul; For as God hath, Blood and uncleanness, all the foul Actions which are done in the world, written in his Book; and yet every leaf thereof is fair, and clean, as purity itself; so may the mind of man mingle itself with the most polluted Objects that are, and yet be a Virgin still, chaste and untouched; I may entertain all the Heresies that are, in my thoughts, and yet be Orthodox, I may think of evil, and with that thought destroy it: 'Tis not the sight of the object, nor the knowledge of evil, 'tis not the remembrance of evil; 'Tis not the Contemplation of Evil, that can make me Evil; for, if I watch over myself, and it, I may think of it, and loathe it, I may remember, and abhor it; For how could a Prophet denounce Judgement against sin, if he did not think of it? How could I abhor, and avoid s●…? how could I repent of it, if it were not in my Thought.  

3.  This we cannot doubt of: But than Thirdly, The sense and Fancy may receive the object with some delight, and natural complacency, and yet without sin; if we stand upon our Guard, suffer it to win no more ground, but then oppose it most, when it most pleads for admittance: For thus fare it will advance; and as the rational, and intellectual delight is, from some Conclusion gained and drawn out of the principles of Discourse, which is the work of reason; so there is a sensible complacency, which is nothing else but adulatio corporis, the pleasing of the sense, by the application of that, which is most agreeable to it; as a better red, 
Arnob. l. 7. adv. Gent.  and white to the eye; of a more pleasant voice to the ear; That which is sweet, the Taste judgeth so, that which is fair, the eye receiveth so: for this is natural to it, and inseparable from it; and so it is to the Fancy, to entertain objects in that shape, and form they represent themselves; But then, we must stay, and question them here, at their first approach, and arrival in these their rays and Glory; and God hath made man a keeper of his heart, as of a Castle; which he betrays not, till he hath delivered it up into the Enemy's hands. Clavis hujus castri cogitatio est, The Key of this Castle is his Thought; 
Bern.  This opens his Heart, and may shut it; This gives way and Room for the Tentation to enter, which is not done, till he think, as the enemy would have him; 'til he busy, and roll about his thought, which is as the turning of a key to open a door, and passage unto him; I may think 'tis a fair sight, and my will may turn from it; I may think it Music, and my will may be deaf; I may think it pleasant to the taste, and my will may distaste, and loathe it when reason hath discovered death in the apple; but when we draw near to it, and in a manner invite it to enter; when we delight in that beauty, which attempts our chastity, that pleasure which assaults our continence, and stay, and dwell, and solace ourselves with these unlawful objects; then 'tis more than a thought, 'tis more than a natural complacency; 'tis a sin, for not only the sense is pleased, but the will; for we would not have set it up so high in our fancy, we would not have Deified it there, if we had not been willing to fall down, and worship it; And now though it be but a thought, it is a work of the flesh, wrought and finished in the mind, and wants nothing but opportunity to bring it into Act; 
Tertul de resurrect. carn's. c. 15.  nec enim cogitatus licet solos, licet non ad effectum per carnem deduc●os à collegio carnis auferimus, saith Tertullian, so far is it, that the soul should be alone in the Actions of our life; that we cannot take these thoughts which are alone, and not yet brought into act, from the society, and fellowship of the flesh, which works in the soul, as the soul doth by it; For in the flesh, and with the flesh, and by the flesh, that is done by the soul, which is done in the heart and inward man.  
Fourthly: Our natural inclination or appetite to join with those objects which occasion sin, if it proceed, and work not beyond the limits which God hath set up, is not irregular, or sinful: 
Nullus in homine naturalis appetitus qui non potest virtuosè impleri. Helcet. in l. Sap ser. 42.  for there is no natural appetite, no natural inclination of man, which in the effect may not be drawn up, to end in some virtuous action: no fuel, no sparkle in our nature which may not be improved, and fixed at last, as a star in the firmament of the soul; and therefore is good and tends to good, as well as to evil: my inclination to anger my be drawn up unto a godly zeal, or end in meekness; my inclination to meats; in sobriety and temperance, my inclination to carnality, may either be restrained in a virgin's life, or made honourable in a married; my affections, and desires were imprinted in me by Nature, and therefore by the hand of God himself, and are not in themselves vicious, but may be good, and profitable; and advantageous to me, in the race I have to run: what though my inclination, and desire look towards pleasure? my anger prompt, and urge me to revenge? my fear drive me from that danger; by undergoing which, I might secure myself from a greater? it is their nature, and they are left in me to this end; for God hath also set up a power within me, my reason 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a natural judicatory, by which I discern that which is good, from that which is evil, by which I may be familiar with the Laws of God, well skilled in spiritual wisdom; and by that becalmall Tumults in the soul, moderate, and regulate my affections, and if they be too urgent, subdue and crucify them, set them their bounds which they shall not pass, which are righteousness and the Laws of God; that I prefer not my grief or pleasure, or any other inclination, or affection before the will of God, which hath placed them in me, not to destroy me, but to be serviceable to him, and conducible to that end, for which he left them in me: I may make my anger a Magistrate to punish my sin, my fear a Centinel to warn me of danger, my sorrow a penitentiary to water my couch with my tears; my hope a pillar to lean upon, and how can that be sin, without which I cannot be virtuous? For if I could not be angry, I could not be meek: If I had no desire, I could not be chaste; if I were void of fear, I could not watch, if I could not rebel, I could not obey; if I could not be evil, I could not be good; if I had no inclination to vice, I could not be virtuous: for this is the work of reason, and virtue, to subdue, and regulate this inclination, to draw it unto good, which might have been misled, and carried unto evil, and our watchfulness consists in this, in making that useful, which may be hurtful, in making that a friend which might have been an enemy, in taking the danger out of an inclination, the sting out of a temptation, and with it the victory. What can we resemble God more than in the destruction of sin? and this we may do by the help of our passions; my joy sings Psalms to him, my fear observes him, and trembles before him; my anger revengeth his quarrel; when my indignation is against myself; my sorrow pays him the tribute of tears; my love hasteth with a steady eye to that which is good, when that is present, it is transformed into joy, when to come, 'tis quickened into hope, when 'tis past, 'tis poured forth into desire; all natural inclinations may be brought to work for our good, and the glory of God that gave them.  
For we must learn to distinguish between our natural desire and our will, or else we shall bring him in guilty of sin; who took away the sins of the World, who though he came to do the will of his Father, and was willing to do it, yet in his Agony, desired that that cup might be taken from him, without drinking of which, it could not be done; and this desire doth not derogate from his obedience, but commend it; that he brought down this natural desire under the will of his Father, and would drink that cup, 
Maxima chsequii gloria est in eo, quod aequi minus velit. I'lin. Paneg.  which his humane nature trembled at; not my will but thine be done. Herein is obedience, if a man doth the will of God even against his will, that is his natural desire. When my breasts are full of milk, and my blood dances in my veins, and my natural inclination is strong within me, when beauty, not only tempts, but solicits, and opportunity and the twilight favour me; when my natural desire is eager, and vehement, when I thus would, and might, and will not; then am I chaste, an Eunuch for the kingdom of Heaven: when my choler would draw my sword, and my reason locks it in my Scabbard; then am I meek: when I am brought to the trial of my faith, and my fear would carry me away from that persecution which rageth against me, for the truth's sake, and I cleave to the truth, and chase this fear away, which would carry away me, or awe, and over-match it by the readiness, and strength of the spirit, and resolve against those terrors, which would shake me from my rock, (for I may fear, and yet suffer) then am I a Soldier of Christ: when I am fastened to the stake, and am made a spectacle to thousands, to some a spectacle of pity, to others of reproach, when I see the light; the joy of the whole earth; the Heavens above me; and the land of the living, where I was wont to walk; when I see all the ceremony, and pomp of persecution and death; when the executioner is ready to put fire to my funeral pile; when my flesh trembles, and nature shrinks from that which will abolish it, when in this fit of trepidation, a conditional pardon is offered, and I would, yet will not receive it, because even the saving letters, that are in it, are killing; when the outward man would not be thus sacrificed: and yet I offer him up, than the crown is ready for me, and the flame of fire, in which I shall be reduced almost to nothing, is my Chariot, to carry my soul up to receive it. I cannot say, that this strife and contention is in all; for the grace of God's spirit, may so settle and quiet it, that it shall scarce be sensible; but where it is sensible, it is no sign that the tentation hath prevailed, but rather a strong argument, that we are not as yet lead, and shut up in it, but forcing a way, and passage out of it, that though the strong man thus come against us, yet there is something in us stronger than he, something opposite, and contrary to the tentation, which will not suffer it to come so near, as to shake our constancy, or drive us from our resolution; it may lay hard at us, to make us leave our hold: and to repress, and keep it back, to strengthen and lift up ourselves, that we do not fall, is the effect of our watchfulness, and Christian fortitude, by which we are more than Conquerors.  
To conclude this; though the sense, and fancy receive the object, which is a tentation, though our natural temper incline to it, and raise in us a kind of desire to it (which is but a resultancy from the flesh) yet if we stand upon our guard, and watch, we shall be so far from sinning, that we shall raise that obedience upon it, which makes a way to happiness; and the soul shall be sospes, et fidei calore fervens inter tentamenta Diaboli, 
Hieron. Apronio  as Saint Jer. speaks, safe and sound, vigorous and lively in the midst of all these tentations, shall be undefiled of that object, which is fair, and unshaken of that, which is terrible to the sense. Put on then the whole armour of God, stand upon your guard, set up the spirit against the flesh, the reason against your sense; watch one eye with another, your carnal eye, with a spiritual eye, your carnal ear, with a spiritual ear, check your fancy, bound your inclination, if the flesh be weak, let the spirit be ready, if one raise a liking or desire, let the other work the miracle, and cast it out; and this is to work light out of darkness, good out of that, which might have been evil, life out of that, which might have been death; this is indeed to watch.  
And to this end that we may thus watch; let us out of that which hath been said, gather such rules, and directions which may settle and confirm us in our watch, and carry on our care, and solicitude unto the end, that we may watch, and so not enter into temptation. And first we must study the temptations themselves, so study them as to wipe off their paint, to strike off their illecebrae and beauty, to behold them in their proper, and native colours, and representations; optimus Imperator, 
Veger.  qui habet cognitas res hostium, he is the best Commander, the best Watchman who knows his enemy, and can see through his disguise and vizor, through his counterfeit terrors, and lying boasts, and knows what he is: For indeed nothing can make tentations of any force, but the opinion we have of them; it is not poverty that afflicts me, but the opinion that poverty is evil; 'tis not the evil itself, but my own thoughts which deserve this ill at my hands: I am afraid of it, because I think it horrid, and whilst I think, I make it so. It is not the blow of the tongue that can hurt me, for 'tis but a word, 'tis not a Thunderbolt, and if it were, yet the Stoic will tell us inhonestius est dejectione animi perire, quam fulmine, 
Senc. Na. Question.  It is not so great an evil, nor so dishonourable, to be struck with a Thunderbolt, as to be killed with fear; far worse that my fancy should wound me, than the tongue of an enemy. For what secret force can there be in a calumniating tongue, to pierce through our very hearts, and shake and disturb our minds? we can hear it thunder, and not be cast down, but so improvident, and cruel we are to ourselves that a breath from malice, or envy will lay us on the ground, Non ex eo quod est fallimur, sed ex eo quod non est, we are not deceived with the realities, but with the disguises, and appearances of things, which those shapes which we have given them, we first make them idols, and then fall down and worship them: we carelessly take in the object, and let our fancy lose to work and hammer, and polish it, as Poets do make gods of men, and Seas of little Rivers; and in this fair outside, in which we have dressed them, they do deceive us, if we would look nearer into them, if we would desire them, involutas evolvere, unsold, and lay them open, take them out of that gaudiness, in which they are wrapped, they could not have this operation, nor thus work upon us, sapiens est, cui res sapiunt, ut sunt, he is a prudent man, to whom things savour, and relish as they are, and our vigilancy, and spiritual wisdom consists in this, in distinguishing one thing from another, in abstracting that evil that may be, from that good that appears, in discovering a sophism from a demonstration, in being able to sever the colour and appearance of a thing, from the thing itself; glory from riches, misery from poverty, for truly these are not in them, but are to be looked for and feared in something else: Did we contemplate only that, which is properly theirs, which is only theirs, and not that which they have not, but ex dono by our gift, we should not so often stoop, and submit to these vile offices, nor forsake our reason to join with our sense: we should then look through the flatteries of the world, and behold the inward horror they conceal, we should look through the terrors of the world, and consider that inward sweetness, and light which many times breaks through them, like lightning through a dark and sullen cloud: we should not thus honour them with our fear, nor would our hearts so often fail at the very sight of them: we should not forfeit our souls to save our estates, wound our Conscience to secure our purse, be perjured rather then imprisoned, and so run into Hell from the face and frown of a Tyrant: but as Gregory observes, 
Hom. 39 in. Isa.  Anima rebus praesentibus dedita abscondit sibi mala sequentia, when the Soul mixes with the world and cleaves to these temporary things, when it is buried, as it were, in the flesh, and carnal pleasures, it draws the veil before its face, and obscures and hides from itself those evils which are sure to follow, which could she truly discern, she would watch, and take courage against that temptation, which she now, not only yields to, but embraceth.  
And that we may throughly discern them, which is the office of our Christian vigilancy, it will be necessary for us to compare them: for the Orator will tell us, Facilius latent, 
M. Seneca. Cont. 164.  quae non comparantur, Those things which we look upon with a single eye, but once; do commonly lie hid, and we see them, as if we saw them not; but when we look them over again, and compare them with something better than they, than we see them nearer, and have a more direct, and fuller view of them, we see they are nothing, or nothing what they seemed, as when the Sun is up, the lesser lights are obscured, and the glory of the stars is not seen. Beauty is delightful, but what is it to the splendour of Virtue? who would look upon a face, that could see her naked? what is Honour, that is blasted with a breath, with a Frown, to immortal Glory? what is the Merchant's Pearl, to the Kingdom of Heaven? what are pleasures, which are but for a season, to those which are for evermore? what's a span of time, a moment to Eternity? And certainly, were these outward things, which do but please, and tempt, and withdraw us from better, the only reward of goodness, these Airy, fugitive, envenomed Glories, all that we should find at the end of our Race, no wise man would stoop to reach them up; if these were the end of our Hopes, we were of all men most miserable; if this were all the Heaven that were promised, we should not believe there was either a God, or Heaven: Compare them if you please; worldly Glories, with spiritual blessings; the one come toward us smiling, and make us mirth and melody, but they soon turn their back, and leave us sad and disconsolate, in the very shadow of Death; The other present themselves at first, with great distaste to flesh and blood, because we look upon them through a sad and dark medium, through disgrace and affliction, and Death itself, but if we look often, and converse familiarly with them, we shall see them in Beauty and Riches, and Heaven, and God himself; and is it not a great deal better for a while to watch, and strive, and fight it out, and afterwards rejoice, and triumph as Conquerors, then by the impatience of one hour, to be slaves for ever? Quid enim est malum, nisi impatientia boni? 
Tertul de patientia.  for what is evil; what is our yielding to Temptations, the slacking of our watch, but our want of patience towards that which is good? Thus if we compare them, we shall soon discover their deformity, and on holy desires, and strong resolutions, as with the wings of a Dove, fly swiftly away, that we may be at rest; Thus if we know them, they can hardly hurt us; for what Pliny spoke of Monsters and Prodigies, is true, either of fair, or black Tentations, Ostenterum vires in eorum potestate sunt, quibus portenduntur; as of the one, 
Prout quaeque accepta sunt, ità valent. Plin. Nat. hist. l. 28.3.  so of the other, their power is no greater, than they would have it, to whom it is showed, and presented, and are of force so fare, as they are received, have no power to hurt us, but from ourselves; and therefore we must deal with them, as they did with those prodigies, neglect, and slight them, that they may not hurt us, beat down, Crucify the flesh, with the affections and lusts, disgrace, and vilify every imagination that exalts itself against God; Hate them with a perfect hatred: For not to yield, is to overcome, to study, and learn, and know temptations, and find out, where their great strength lieth, and cut it off; to consider them as they are, and not in appearance, but reality; to contemn and put them by, is that which makes way to victory, and prepares us for the coming of the Lord.  

3.  But Thirdly: 
Nihil in bello oportet contomni.  let us not so neglect and slight them, as to let them come up too near us (for so to neglect an Enemy, is to strengthen him) but let us stand at the Doors, and repress, and put them back at the first sight, either of their false glory, or their borrowed Terror; let us turn away our eyes, that they behold not vanity; periculosum est crebrò videre, 
Nemo diu ●u tus periculo proximus. Cyp. ep. 61.  per quae aliquando captus sis, a dangerous thing it is, nay, a folly it is to behold those objects, and look upon them often, which may be a snare unto us, to dally with the point of that sword, which may enter our Bowels, to sport with that serpent, which may sting us to death. What should they do long in the eye? why should they stay so long in the Fancy, till she gilled and beautify them? and set them up as an Idol to worship? no let us watch, and rouse up ourselves, and beat down every Altar, as soon as it is erected there; nay, stay the Fancy in its work, repress them here in causis, in their beginnings, Take these Babylonish brats, and dash them against the stones; for he that doth not meet, and withstand an evil in the approach, hath fairly invited it, to come forward, qui morbo non occurrit, sibi manus infert, he that doth not use speedy means to keep back a disease, is as he that kills himself. A A thought begets Delight, delight begets consent, consent is seen in Action, Action begets Custom, Custom necessity, necessity Death; it was but an object, but an apparition, but a Thought at first, and now 'tis Death; and he that was willing a Thought should lead in the Front, was willing also that Death should come in the rear. It is not safe thus to Dally with a Temptation, to resolve not to act it, and yet to act in the mind, which will soon make the Basis, and groundwork of a resolution to be afraid of the Action, and yet commit the sin, to nourish that sin in my bosom, which I am ashamed to be seen with abroad, which will yet at last break forth before the Sun, and the people, to harbour that in my closet, which within a while will be on the House top. That of Bernard is most true, though it be in rhyme, non nocet sensus, ubi non est consensus, the sense hurteth not where there is no consent: It is no sin for the eye to see, or the care to hear, or for the Fancy to set up objects within her in that shape in which they appear, but it is a hard matter, as Saint Hierome speaks, integritate mentis abutivoluptatibus, to abuse those pleasures, which daily present themselves, to a good end; to have them as Aristippus had his Lais) and not to have them, to live in pleasure, without that delight, which makes Tentation a sin: we may say of Temptations, as he did of Fortune, ana est ad illam securitas, non toties illam experirt, The best security we have against Fortune's fickle inconstancy is, not to make trial of her too often, not to want her; so of Tentations: It is not good to look too often upon them when they flatter, not to see too often, not to hear too often, not to open our eyes or our ears to vanity; For as they who busy themselves in worldly affairs, when all things succeed prosperously, do begin at last to dote on Riches, and love them for themselves, which they sought for at first, but for their necessity; so what we look upon at first, as a common object, by degrees insinuates, and is made familiar to us, and wins our affection to it, delights and overcomes us, and what did at first stand at door, and beg an entrance, at last enters in, and takes full possession of us, and commands in chief.  
Last of all, let us Consider the Apostle and High Priest of our profession, CHRIST JESUS, even this Lord who is to come, who hath opened the Treasuries of Heaven, brought own Life and Immortality, displayed his rich, and precious promises of Heaven, and Everlasting Happiness, all which he will make ours, if we make good but this one word, but this one syllable, Watch: This is the price of Heaven; This he died for, that we should be a peculiar People unto him, Even his Watchmen: That as he, for the joy which was set before him, endured the Cross, despised shame, suffered the Contradictions of sinners, and yet was yesterday and to Day, 
Heb. 12.  and the same for ever. So we by his Power, and the efficacy of his Spirit, by the virtue of his Precepts, and the Glory of his Promises, may establish ourselves, watch over ourselves, secure ourselves, in the midst of snares, and so be in the World as out of the world, walk in the midst of Temptations and be untouched, walk in the midst of all these Fiery Trials, as the Three Children did in the Furnace, and have no hurt; Hear the Music of the world, but not hearken to it, behold its allurements, and not be moved, be one and the same in all the Changes and variety of Temptations, the same when they flatter, and the same when they Threaten, which is truly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, to be like unto our Lord.  
And because the watch man watcheth in vain, unless the Lord keepeth the house; we must call upon this Lord, to watch with us, and to watch over us, who is not gratiae angustus, as Saint Ambrose speaks, no niggard of his Grace, but as he hath given us a command to watch, so he hath given us another, to depend upon him, 
Greg Hom. 36.  for assistance, et scimus quià petentes libenter exaudit, quando hoc petitur largiri quod jubet, and we know it is impossible he should deny us our requests, when we desire him to grant us that, which he desires we should have; his help and assistance to do that which he commands; do we desire it? he wisheth it; do we beg it of him? he beseeches us to accept it; we beg his assistance against the lusts of the flesh; 
1 Thes. 4.3.  he commands us to crucify them; against the pollutions of the world; his will is our sanctification, against the Devil; if we will, he will tread him under our feet; he commands us, who is Xistarcus the master of the race; and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the overseer, and Captain of the watch, by whose power and wisdom, we may keep back all our enemies. If the Devil suggests evil thoughts, he inspires good; if the enemy lay hard at us that we may fall his mercy is ready to hold us up; if we be subtle; our Lord is wisdom itself; in all our trials, in all time of our tribulation, in all time of our wealth, in the hour of death, and in the day of judgement, he is our Lord, and his Grace is sufficient for us. If we fail, and miscarry, 'tis because we will not join him with us; because we begghiss assistance, and will not have it, call upon him for help, and weary him with our refusals; beseech him to do that, which we will not suffer him to do, bespeak him to watch over us, 
Is. 21.11. If you will inquire, inquire.  and fll fast asleep! If you will repent, repent, saith the watchman; jaf you would watch, why do ye not? How many years have you worn out in this spiritual exercise? nay, 
Vide Castalionis perutilem Tract. de quinque impedimentis bonae mentis. Job 8.9.  to fall lower, have we devoted two or three months? nay, lower yet, how many weeks have we spent? a week is not long; but how many days? our days on earth are but a shadow, but how many hours? and hours we say, have wings, and fly away; (I am ashamed to ask again) How many minutes hath it cost us? our life is but a span; how much of this span? how little of this little? what a nothing of this nothing hath this great business took up? 
Job 14.14. Psal. 119.164 Psal 55.17. Acts 24.25. Ephe. 6.14.  O that we could say with Job: all the days of my appointed time, or with David, seven times a day, or were it his morning, his noon, his evening; but I fear, all is shut up in Foelix his convenient season, that is, when the world, and our flesh; when our lust and the devil will give us leave, and then, what faint, feeble breathing? what thin and empty conceptions? nay, what noisome exhalations? what contradictions? what sins are our prayers.  
Let us then call upon him to be present with us, and to assist us in our watch; but, let us gird up our loins when we call upon him; let us watch and pray; pray, and watch, let us endeavour, when we pray, and he will help our endeavours, let us intent what we desire, and he will grant it: let us mean what we speak, and he will hear us: for he never shuts his ears against his own words, and his own words are, Ask and you shall have; ask the blessings of the right hand, or the left, and he will give you them, or that which is better for you: but if you ask his Grace, his assistance; you are heard, before you speak, for he is all Grace, all Goodness, all Rays, all beauty, and will fill you with himself; for his delight is to be in the sons of men, and to make them like him. Trouble not yourselves then with what he will do, or not do, but be busy in your watch, watch and pray in this your hour; that you may know him, and be known of him; that at your last day, and hour, you may know, and find him, what now you believe him to be, your Righteousness, your Lord, your Saviour; haec est hora vestra, this is your hour; this span of time, this moment is that, on which depends your Eterniy; if in this your hour you watch, and be ready to go out, and meet him, he will receive you with joy, even receive you to his table; there to rest, and sit down, and delight yourselves with Abraham, and Isaac, and all the Prophets, and all the Apostles, all the Martyrs, all your fellow watchmen, and with them to sing praises to this Lord for evermore.    

THE SEVENTEENTH SERMON.  GAL. 1.10. The last part of the Verse. 
For do I now persuade men or Gods? or do I seek to please men? For if I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ.  
WHich words admit a double sense, but not contrary; for the one is virtually included in the other; as first, If I should yet do as I did, when I was a Jew, seek to please men, and to gain repute, and honour, and wealth, fit my Doctrine to their corrupt disposition, I should never have entered into Christ's service, which sets me up as it were, in opposition to the world, and the counsels of the world, and so lays me open to scorn, and hatred, to misery, and poverty.  
Or more plainly this; If being an Apostle of Christ, I should yet please men; attemper my Doctrine to their taste and relish, whatsoever I call myself, yet certainly, I shall in no degree approve myself, to be the servant of Christ.  
And in this sense, if you view the form and manner of the words, they are at the first found, but a mere supposition of S. Paul's; but if we hear them again, and well observe and consider them, we shall find them to bea satire, and bitter reprehension of those false Apostles, who did mingle and confound Christ and the Law; and all those who shall leave the truth behind them, to meet and comply with the humours of men; I say, a plain and flat redargution, but clothed in the Garment and ●abit of a Hyothetical proposition, Nobis non licet esse sic disertis. It is not for us Latins to be thus elegant; the Latin Poer speaks it of himself, but indeed lasheth that too much liberty, which the Greeks assumed to themselves; and si adhuc placerem, if I yet pleased men, is as a finger pointing out to the false Doctors, who were pleasers of men.  
Again, as it is an artisicial reprehension, so if you shall please to look upon it intentively, you shall find it to be a rail and precept. For as some commentators on Aristotle have observed, that his rule many times is contained, and lies hid in the example and instance which he brings; as when he gives you the instance of a magnificent man, you shall there easily discover the face and beauty, and full proportion of magnificence, so what Saint Paul, speaking of himself, lays down as a supposition, is indeed a rule and precept. And this which hath been observed of Aristotle, is the constant method of the holy Ghost, that which is brought for instance, is a precept, when Josuah speaks of himself, 
Josh. 24.15.  I, and my household will serve the Lord, he draws the character of a good Master of a Family. When Job says; 
Job. 29.24.  I put on righteousness, and it clothed me, he fitteth a robe for a good Magistrate; when David saith, I watered my Couch with my tears, he hath presented us with the most lively picture of a Penitentiary; my meat is to do the work of him that sent me, are the words of our Saviour in Saint john's Gospel, 
John 4.34.  and as they lie, seem to be but a bare Narration, but they are a command, and speak in effect thus much unto us, that as to him it was, so to us it must be even meat and drink to do the will of our Father which is in Heaven. And here, si adhuc placerem, if yet I pleased men, I were not the servant of Christ, Saint Paul speaks it of himself, but it is a command given to all those, who have given up their name unto Christ, and every man may make this deduction to himself, that to please men and serve Christ are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, are incompatible, and cannot stand together; that the best way to keep Christ's livery on our backs, is not so much to be slaves unto men, as to please them.  
And then, these three things are wrapped up in this supposition. First, our Apostles purgation of himself; that he is none. Secondly, a sharp reprehension of Men-pleasers. Thirdly, a flat command against it.  
Or thus: here is something implied, and something plain and positive; that which is implied is, that most men are willing to be pleased; that which is plain and positive, is, that there be others, that will be too ready to please them. And then the parts will be three. 1. We shall discover the humour, the desire of being pleased, and the danger of it. 2. A humour, which is ready to meet, and answer this; an art, and readiness of pleasing others, of knowing their taste and palate, and dishing out their instructions with such sauces which shall delight them; in making their addresses to them in that shape, and posture, which they most love to look upon, and are ready to welcome and reward; and cast off all the Huge distance, and inconsistency which is between these two, the pleasing of men, and the being a servant of Christ, and of these we shall speak plainly in their order.  
si adhuc placerem; if I yet pleased men etc.  
And first we need not doubt, that most men desire to be pleased, and it may seem a needless labour to go about to prove it, for do but whisper, do but breath against their humour, and you have made a demonstration, that it is so. Saint Paul indeed makes it his wonder at the 6. v. miror quod tam citò, I wonder that you are so soon removed; and we might well wonder at his wonder, but that his miror carries with it more of reproof than admiration; for the consideration of this humour, this desire to be pleased takes off our admiration, and when we have discovered this, we cease to wonder, into a barren soil, from the Gospel of Christ, which bringeth salvation, but withal trouble to the flesh, to another Gospel, which is no Gospel, but excludeth both; in a word, to see men begin in the spirit, and end in the flesh Omnis rei displicentis etiam opinio reprobatur, saith Tert. The very thought of that, which displeases us, displeases us almost as much as the thing itself; for indeed it is nothing but thought that troubles us, and it is not the matter or substance of truth, but opinion, and our private humour which makes truth such a bitter pill, that we cannot take it down. It was the usual speech of Alexander the great to his Master Aristotle, Doce me facilia; leave, I pray you, your knotty and intricate discourses, and teach me those things which are easy, which the understanding may not labour under; but such as it may receive with delight: and it is so with us in the study of that art of arts, which alone can make us both wise and happy, we love not duros Sermons, those hard and harsh lessons which discipline the flesh, and bring it into subjection, and demolish those strong holds, which it hath set up, and in which it trusteth; a Parasite is more welcome to us, than a Prophet: he is our Apostle, who will bring those familiar and beloved arguments to persuade us to that, to which we have persuaded ourselves already, and further our motion to that, to which we are flying; we find almost the parallel in the 30. of Esai. 10. v. of those, who say to the Seers, see not; loquimini placentia, Prophesy not unto us right things, but Prophesy deceits, men who had rather be cozened with a pleasing lie, then saved with a frowning and threatening truth, rather be wounded to death with a kiss, then be roused with noise, rather die in a pleasant dream, then be awaked to see the pit opening her mouth, and even speaking to them to fly, and save themselves from destruction.  
I am appeal to your eye, and tender you that, which your observation must needs have taken up before, both at home in yourselves, and abroad in others; for he that doth but open his eyes, and look into the world; will soon conceive it as a common stage, where every man treads his measures for approbation, and applause; where every man acts his part, walks as a Parasite to himself; and all men one to another: that is, do the same, which the Israelites did after the molten Calf, 
Exob. 32.27.  slay every man his brother, and every man his Neighbour, and every man his Companion, every man being a ready executioner in this kind, and every man ready, and willing to die. We will therefore in the next place, search this evil humour, this desire of being pleased, and we shall be the willinger to be purged of it, if either we consider the causes from which it proceeds, or the bitter effects, which it produceth.  
And First: It hath no better Original, than Defect, than a wilful, and negligent failing in those Duties, to which Nature and Religion hath obliged us; a leanness and emptiness of the soul, which not willing to fill itself with Righteousness, fills itself with Air, with false counsels, and false attestations, with miserable comforts: In time of necessity, when we have nothing to eat, we fall too with the Prodigal, and fill our Belly with husks. The wicked fly when none pursueth. Prov. 28.1. fly from themselves to others, and from others to themselves; chide themselves, and flatter themselves, are troubled and soon at rest, fly to the Rule, which condemns them, to absolve them, and suborn one Text, to infringe and overthrow another, as he that hath no good Title, is bold on a false one. Citò nobis placemus; It is a thing soon done, and it requires no labour nor study to be pleased: we desire it as sick men do Health, as Prisoners do Liberty, as men on the rack do Ease; for a troubled spirit is an ill disease; not to have our will is the worst Imprisonment, his choice, is to put himself upon the rack. 
Rom. 14. the last verse.  We may see it in our civil affairs, and matters of lesser allay: when any thing lies upon us as a burden, how willing are we to cast it off? How do we strive to pluck the sting out of every serpent, that may by't us? how do we study to work out the venom out of the worst of evils? when we are poor, we dream of Riches, and make up that, which is not, with that which may be: when we have no House to hid our heads, we build a Palace in the Air: when we are sick, This thought turns our bed, That we may recover; and if the Physician cannot heal us, yet his very name is to us as a promise of Health: we are unwilling to suffer, but we are willing, nay, desirous to be eased, as Basil tells us of young men, that when they are alone, or in some solitary place 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, they feign unto themselves strange Chimaeras, suppose themselves Lords of countries', and favourites of Kings, and which is yet more, though they know all this to be but fancy, and a Lie, yet please themselves in it, as if it were true indeed. 
Arist Rhetor. 2. c. 14.  We all are like Aristotle's young man 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, full of Hope, and when there is no Door of hope left, we make one. And so it falls out in the managing of our spiritual estate, we do as the Apostle exhorts (though not to this end) cast away every Thing, that presseth down, but so cast it away, as to leave it heavier than before, prefer a momentary ease, which we beg, or borrow, or force from Things without us, before that Peace, which nothing can bring in, but that grief, and serious Repentance, which we put off with hands and words, as as a Thin irksome, and unpleasing; For could we be sick, we might be well; did not we love our disease, we might shake it off; but we are sick, and will be so; there is something wanting, and a supply is our shame, being an Argument of that defect, which we are unwilling to acknowledge, a Physician doth but upbraid us, and selves in our Disease, as in health itself, and had rather languish and Dye, then be told we are sick.  
And this (in the Second place) proceeds even from the force and power of Conscience within us, which, if we will not hearken to it as a Friend, will Turn Fury, and pursue and lash us, and if we will not obey her Dictates, will make her feel her whip. This is our Judge, and our Executioner; It whips the sluggard, stones the Adulterer, Hangs and quarter's the Traitor, blows upon the miser's store, and makes the lips of the Harlot by't like a Cockatrice; whither shall they go from her spirit, and power? whither shall they fly from her presence? the Philosopher will tell us, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, they fly from themselves, 
Aristot. l. 9 Eth. c. 4.  yet carry themselves about with them whithersoever they go. Now every thing that is oppressed, doth naturally desire ease, and so do they, and finding it a laborious thing to quiet the Conscience, which cannot be done but by yielding and bowing our backs to her whip, and running from ourselves, from those sins, which pleased our sense, but enraged our Conscience; we seek out many inventions, and advance our sins against her, till they prevail, and even put her to silence. For in evil men, the worst part doth the office of the better, corrupts the Records, mitigates the sentence, pronounceth life in Death: The sensual part is their Conscience, their God, it bids them do this, and they do it, and when it is done, is a ready Advocate to plead for it, and defend it; It conceives and brings forth the Monster, and then gives it what name it please: It was a crying sin; It hath now lost its voice; It was uncleanness, it is now frailty; It was treason, it is now the love of our Country; It was perjury, It is now prudence; Riches commend Covetousness, bonor Treason, pleasure wantonness: That which begets sin, nurseth it up, till it grow up to strength to oppose itself to Conscience, and degrade, and put her from her Office, and bring in a Thousand sorry excuses to take her place; in the midst of which she cannot be heard; not heard against Riches, whose Sophistry is preferred before her Demonstrations; not heard against Beauty, which bewitches us, and makes us fools; not heard against Honour, which lifteth us up so high, that we cannot hear her; not heard against Power, which is the greatest parasite in the world, and calls in a world of Parasites to bow before us, and bless us in the Name of the Lord; and thus we are first pleased to sin and then are easily pleased in it; we are in danger, and will not know it, and when the God of Israel is angry, hear what the God of Ekron will say: In a word; we raise a storm in ourselves, and whistle it down; we wound ourselves, and skinn it over, we are too soon troubled, and too soon eased, and might recover, were not our remedy more fatal than our Disease.  
Thus you see this humour of being pleased is very predominant in most men; and in the Third place, as it proceeds from the power and force of Conscience, which will speak if she may be Herd, and doth speak, even when she is not heard, so it doth from the lustre and Glory of Piety and holiness, which spreads her Beams, and darts her Light in the very face of them, who have proscribed her, sent her a Bill of divorce, and put her away, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, for goodness is equally venerable to all men, and not only Good men speak well of her, but her enemies praise her in the gates; who is so evil, that he is willing to go under that Name? How angry will a Strumpet be, if you call her so? Call a Pharisee a Hypocrite, and he will thrust you out of the Synagogue. Though I bow down before an Image, yet I am not an Idolater; though I break the bonds of Peace, yet I am not factious. Though I never have enough, yet I am not covetous; I am not evil, though I do those Things, for which we justly call men so. Our rule here is quite contrary to that known and received Axiom of the world, Malo me divitem esse, quam haberi; In the managing of our worldly affairs, we had rather be rich, then be accounted so, but in the course of our Religion, we are rich enough, we are good enough, if we have but the name that we are so; we are good enough, if none dare call us evil.  
And thus it is both in the Errors of our understanding, and of our will: In the one we think it better to pretend to knowledge, and rest ourselves in that, then to be taught to alter our mind, malumus didicisse, quam discere, That we know something already, is our glory, 
Quintil. l. 3. Instit. 1.  but to submit ourselves to Instruction, is an Argument of Imperfection; and therefore we account it a punishment to be Taught; And this is the reason, why so few have retracted their Errors, but rather stoutly defended them, even a loathness to seem to have erred, which mightily reigns in most men but especially in all pretenders unto knowledge; Nature itself having annexed a shame unto these two above all other Things, which Naturally befall us, Lust and Ignorance; for as the Italian Proverb is, A Learned Fool will be a fool ever.  
And so it is in the other; In the practic errors of our life, we would not know ourselves, nor have others know that we have done any thing amiss; qui apponit scientiam, apponit dolorem, 
Eccles. 1. last verse.  he that increaseth Knowledge, increaseth sorrow: for when the knowledge of the Truth incites us to follow after it, and the force of Custom draws us back, we are as it were, at war, and divided in ourselves, our motion is unquiet, as the bounding of a heady Steed, with the bit in his mouth; we are in our own way, and impatient of a Check; and we hate those Counsellors which are willing to be eyes to us, and lead us out of Danger. Tell a heretic, he is so: He will Anathematise you. Tell a Schismatic he is so; he will fly from you, as from the Plague. Tell a persecuter, he is so, and he will rage's more, and make it good upon yourself, deny it, and yet make it too manifest, That he is so. For the will of man loves the channel, which it hath chosen, and would run on smoothly, and evenly without Interruption, but when it meets with any stop, or bank, it gins to rage and foam, and cast up mire and dirt in their faces, who do attempt to stop its course, volumus errare, we will err, and he is an Enemy, that tell us the truth, volumus peccare, we will sinne, but he that tells the Sinner, Thou art the man, shall not be received as a Prophet, but be defied, as an Adversary: Sin is of a Monstrous appearance, who can stand before it? and therefore we either cloud and hid it with an excuse, or dress it up in the mantle of Virtue, in the Habit, and Beauty of Holiness, as Pompey, to commend the Theatre, which he built, called it a Temple.  
And these are the causes which beget and nurse up this evil Humour in us; This desire to be pleased; this unwillingness to be Troubled, though it be to be plucked out of the fire. 1. A defect in ourselves, cannot fill up with righteousness, we do with the shadow of it; Secondly, The Power of Conscience, which when we cannot quiet, we slumber, and cast into a deep sleep; and lastly: the Glory and Beauty of Goodness, which forceth from us, though not a Complacency, yet an approbation, and makes them lay claim unto her, who have violently Thrust her out of doors. He that loves to err, loves not to be told so; He that is not righteous, will Justify himself, and the worst of men desire to bear up their Head and Esteem with the best.  

Let us now see the danger of this Humour, and the bitter effects it doth produce.  
And first, This desire to be pleased placeth us out of all hope of succour, leaves us like an Army besieged, when the Enemy hath cut off all relief. It is a curse itself, and carries a train of curses with it; it makes us blind to ourselves, and not fit to make use of other men's eyes; it maketh our rain, powder and dust, Deut. 28. corrupts all that Counsel and instruction, which as moisture should make us fruitful, it makes us like to the Idols of the Heathen, to have eyes and see not, to have ears, and not to hear; living dead men, such as those to whom the Pythagoreans set up a Sepulchral Pillar; such as Plato says do 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sleep in Hell; men made up of contradictions; in health, and therefore desperately sick; strong and therefore weak, and never more fools, then when they are most wise; plus quàm oportet sapiunt, & plus quàm dici potest desipiunt, saith Bernard; they are wiser than they should be, and more deceived than we can express. Look on the Galatians, in this Epistle, and you shall see how this humour did bewitch them, and what fools it made them, They had received the spirit by the hearing of faith, but this spirit did shake and trouble them, frowned upon that, which they too much inclined to, and therefore they turn the ear from Saint Paul, and opened it to let in the poison of Asps, which the lips of those false Apostles carried under them, and for no other reason, but because they did 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 C. 6. v. 12. make a fair show in the flesh, make them put on the form and shape of a Jew, to avoid the fury of the Roman, who did then tolerate the Jew, but not the Christian, and how many have we now adays, who do Galatizari, as Tertullia's phrase is, who are as foolish as the Galatians? and make this humour the only rule, by which they frame and measure out their Religion? who make it as their Mistress, and love it most than when it is exploded? who will hear to teacher, but that Pharisee, who hath made them his Proselytes? Every man is pleased in his Religion, and that is his Religion, which pleaseth him; that he will rely upon, and Anathema to Saint Paul, or any Angel, that shall preach any other Gospel but that. Our two Tables are not written with the finger of God, our Religion is not framed in the Mount, but here below, in the Region of Phantasms by flesh and blood, which must not be despleased, but swells against every thing, that doth not touch it gently and flater it, and so makes us like to the beasts that perish, who have no principle of motion, but their sense; nay, worse than they, for they have no reason, but we have reason indeed, 
Seneca.  sed quae suo malo est, atque in perversum solers, but which is made instrumental against itself, taught to promote that, which it condemns, to forward that which it forbids, and serves only to make us more unreasonable.  
For again, in the second place, this humour, this desire to be pleased doth not make up our defects, but makes them greater; doth not make vice a virtue, but sin more sinful, for he is a villain indeed, that will be a villain, and yet be thought a Saint; such a one as God will spew out of his mouth. And what is it to acknowledge no defect, and to be worse and worse? to feign a Paradise and be in Hell? to have a name that we live, and to be dead? and what content is that, which is more mortal, than ourselves, and will soon end, and end in weeping and lamentation? Better, far better, were it, that a sword did pass through our heart; that the hidden things of darkness were brought to light, 
1 Cor. 4.5.  and the counsels of our heart made manifest to us, then that it should be dead as a stone, senseless of its plague; better we were tormented into health, than t hat we should thus play and smile, and laugh ourselves into our graves look to upon those sons of Anack, those Giantlike sinners against their God, who have bound up the Law, and sealed up the testimony, which is against them; who will do what they please, and hear what they please, and nothing else, who deal with the Scripture as Caligula boasted he would with the Civil Law of the Romans, 
Sueton Calig. c. 34.  take care ne quid praeter eos loquitur, that it shall not speak at all, or not any thing against them; look upon them; I forget myself, for I fear we look upon them so long, till our eyes dazzle at the sight, and we begin to think, that is not truth, which these men will not hear; but yet look upon them, not with an eye of flesh, but that of faith, an Evangelical eye, and it will rather drop then dazzle; pity then admire them. Oh infaelices, quibus licet peccare, Oh most unhappy men of the World, who have line and liberty to destroy themselves, whom God permits to be evil (as in wisdom he may) and then in justice permits to defend it, whose Chariot wheels he strikes not off, till they are in the Red-sea, whom he suffers, when they would not hearken to his voice, to be smothered to death with their own power, and the breath and applause of fools; Oh 'tis the heaviest judgement in the world not to feel, and fear a judgement till it come. It may be said perhaps, what in all ages hath been said, and not without mur mur and complaining, Behold these are the wicked, 
Psal. 73.6,7.  yet they prosper in their ways; their pride compasseth them about as with a chain, their violence covereth them as with a garment, they feel no pangs, no throws, have no luctations, no struggle within them: they call themselves the children of the most High; and what evil can be to him that feels is not? what is Hell to him that is not sensible? but these are but the Ebullitions, the breathe of flesh and blood, that sees no more of man, than his face and garment; for what seest thou? a painted Sepulchre, but thou dost not see the rotten bones within; thou seest Triumphs and Trophies without, but within are horror, and setench: thou seest the tree of life painted on the gates, open them, and there is fire and Brimstone, Hell and Damnation; thou hearest the tongue speak proud things, but thou seest not the worm, which gnaws within; all this Music is but a Dirge sung at their Funeral, their joy but an Abortive, and an untimely Birth begat by pleasure, by power and wealth, a shadow cast from outward contentments, and when these depart, this joy perisheth.  
For in the third please; This humour, this desire to be pleased, doth not take the whip from Conscience, but enrageth her, lays her asleep to awake with more terror. For conscience may be seared indeed, but cannot be abolished, may sleep, but cannot die, but is as immortal as the soul itself. Conscience follows our knowledge, and it is mpossible to be ignorant of that, which I cannot but know; 'tis not conscience, but our lusts that make the Music; for in the common and known duties of our lives, conscience doth not, cannot misled us; whose conscience ever told him, that Murder, or treason were virtuous? but our lust having conceived and brought forth sin, licks and shapes it to the best advantage; he that is taken in Adultery, will not say that Adultery is no sin; but that flesh was weak, and beauty importunate, saith Hilary; he that revenges will look more on the foulness of the injury, than the irregularity, and exorbitancy of his wrath; he that troubles the peace of Israel will make necessity his plea, or say, he troubles none but those that trouble Israel, and thus conscience may be suppressed, but not totally, and for a time, but not for ever: it may be slumbered by diversion of the mind from trouble some thoughts, by immersing it in pleasures and delights, by the lullabies of Parasites and false Prophets, and so be in a manner held down by the weight of the flesh; But still it is not dead, but sleepeth; and then when these are removed, when pleasure shall turn her back, and worse side, when the false Prophets are dumb, when the flesh hath a thorn in it, will awake as a Giant out of wine, and be more Active and Clamorous then before, call in thy power, thy honour, subborn the the pleasures of the world to make thy peace; seek out some cunning Artist, who can teach what a Philosopher once professed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an Art of indolency, a way to be free from pain and grief; when thy conscience urgeth one place of Scripture, do thou answer it with another; when the letter killeth, do thou put life into it with a gloss, and when it puts thee to trouble, do thou strive to put it to silence, yet conscience will be conscience still, and keep her sting, and by't and wound thee deeper yet; For to seek remedy against the gnawings of the conscience, from these outward formalities and flatteries, is to strive to take away grief with that, which is the cause of it, to destroy it with that which begets it, to diminish it with that which increaseth it, and to cure a wound with poison; what though we have some pause and ease? we can have no Holiday, but what we make ourselves, and that will make our other days more black and dismal; for that ease which I forced and gave myself, doth but multiply my pain and leave it to return upon me again with violence and advantage: nay, our conscience doth not stay so long, but many times lays hold on us in a triumph, in all our state and glory, and in our clearest day will break through all those Bulwarks which we have set up against her, and seize upon us, when we shall say, we shall never be moved, will shake us, when we say Tush God doth not see, will strike through our loins, and when we plead, conscience will tell us we lie. When we breathe nothing but spirit, will pronounce us most carnal Hypocrites; will be as the finger on the wall, when we are quaffing in the vessels of the Sanctuary, you will say, but who sees it? why, the king, the Sacrilegious kind saw it, who was guilty. For who can feel the sting of another man's conscience? and it is no good argument to say, we do not see it, and therefore it is not done: for what close offender will publish the sorrow of his heart? who will tell you what stripes he feels, who is resolved to cleave fast to that, for which he is beaten? He whose ways tend to death, when he makes most haste, and even feels himself falling in, yet will not tell you he is going into Hell. And this is the sad condition of all those, who will, who must be pleased, who will hear nothing that is contrary to them, that is, nothing that may help them; who are devils to themselves, and help the Tempter to overthrow them, who never acknowledge a disease till it be incurable, never see themselves but in Hell, never feel any pain, till it be eternal.   

The second Part.  
We proceed now to lay forth the other evil humour of pleasing men, which is more visible and eminent in the Text. And indeed, to desire to be pleased, and to be ready to please 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Isidor Pelusiot, to flatter, and to be flattered bear that near relation the one to the other, that we never meet them asunder. It is the Devil's net, in which he catcheth two at once, if there be an itching ear, you cannot miss, but you shall find a flattering tongue: if the king of Sicily delight in Geometry, the whole Court shall swarm with Mathematicians, if Nero be lascivious, his palace shall be turned into a stew or Brothel-house, 
Curt. l. 8.  or worse; Non deerit Alexandro talia concupiscenti pernitiosa adulatio, saith Curtius. Alexander that loved to be flattered had Parasites enough. If the Donatists be factious, there will be a Primianus and a Maximinianus to lead them, accedit dignum patellâ operculum, as Saint Hierom applies this proverb to this very purpose; these dishes that will receive nothing but juncats, shall find covers to fit them. And if we look into the world, and see how men every day change with the fashion of the world, altar their notes and turn them to the times, what Echoes they are, when power speaks; if we turn over those multitude of Pamphlets, which for the most part are nothing else but the monuments of men's flattery and base condescendency (for what error yet hath shown so foul a face, as not to find a patron?) If we consider what mountebanks we have in Divinity, as well as in Physic, who seek not men, but theirs, and not to cure their souls, but their own poverty, we shall find reason enough to be jealous, that there hath been a kind of conspiracy made to meet and satisfy this so inordinate and pernicious desire, and to betray the of truth of Christ to this soul and loathsome humour.  
We must inquire then, what it is to please men, and from whence it proceeds, that men, who naturally love to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, to to be eminent above their Brethren, can work themselves to this Baseness, as to fall down and lick the dust of their feet, and help them to destroy themselves, to the Ruin of Both; for both he that makes the Music, and he that hears it, fall together into the same Hell, to howl forever.  
And first, we must not Imagine, That Saint Paul doth bring in here a Cynical Morosity, or a Nabal-like Churlishness, That none may speak to us, and we speak nothing but swords, 
Psal. 59.6.  That we should make a noise like a Dog, and so go round about the City; That we should be as Thorns in ou brethren's sides, ever pricking and galling them, That we should, as Appius in Livy, accusatoriam vitam ducere, breath nothing but railing accusations, nothing but what may strike them with fear, or cast them down with sorrow, or raise their anger, and Indignation. No, Saint Paul was now no such rigid and morose Disciplinarian, for now he is an Apostle, and not a Persecuter, Manè lupus rapax Benjamin ad vesperam dividit escam, 
Hieron ad Heliodorum, Epitaph. Nepotiani.  Ananiae ovi submittens caput, He was as Benjamin, of whose tribe he was, a Ravening Wolf, but now he bows down his head to Ananias, who was a sheep, and of the flock of Christ, and breathes nothing but meekness. There is not a more pleasing, more Tractable, more pliable Creature in the world, than a Christian; If his Brother persecutes him, he is his Beadsman, and prays for him; if he injure him; he is his Priest, and absolves him; if he err, he is his Angel, to keep him in all his ways, and bring him back; if he mourn, he puts on Sackcloth, and if he Rejoice, He is one at the Feast; He appears not to him in any shape that may disquiet or trouble him, but as Esau did to Jacob, Gen. 33.10. That he may see his face, as if he saw the face of God himself. Read the 10. Chapter of the first Epistle to the Corinthians, the last verse, Even I, saith Saint Paul, please all men in all things, not seeking my own profit, out the profit of many, That they may be saved. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I please them, the same word which is in the Text, and in the Ninth Chapter of the same Epistle, at the 22 Verse, I am made all things to all men, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉; I am made, I even frame and Fashion, and force myself to it, Though I am free, I make myself a servant, at the 19 Verse. I undergo all the Humility, the Drudgery, the hardship of a servant; To the Jew I become a Jew, that I might gain the Jew, and you have an example of it, Acts 21. verse 23, 24, 25. To those that are under the Law, as under the Law; to the Gentiles, who were not bound to Mases Law, as a Centile, to them that were without Law, as without Law, as we find Acts 17.22. a Christian Proteus, that wrought himself into any shape, which might bring advantage to them who beheld him; was a Jew to the Jew, to make him a Christian; to them that were without Law, as without Law, to confirm them in the Truth of the Gospel, to them that were weak, as weak, to make them strong; as all Things to all men, not to fill his purse, but to gain their souls, to cut off Circumcision by permitting Circumcision; to converse with the Gentile, and passing by to throw down their Altar, by the Inscription; and by the unknown, bring them to the knowledge of the living God; by being without the Law, bring the Gentile to the grace of the Gospel, and thus Cedendo vincere, by seeming to yield to overcome. And this is not the pleasing of a parasite, but of an Apostle, and careful Father, even that Discretion and Wisdom, which Quintilian commends in a Schoolmaster, whose Duty it is, non statim onerare infirmit atem discentium, 
Quint. l. 1. Inst. c. 3.  sed temperare vires, not presently to over burden the weak capacity of Noviers, but to Temper and moderate his own strength, and consider not what he can teach, but what they can learn; with Jacob, to lead his Flock on softly, lest they Die.  
Besides, The Act itself was not unlawful because the Synagogue was indeed Dead, but not yet buried, but to be buried with Honour, and it was Judaeis factus tanquam, it was only amongst the Jews; for what himself did amongst the Jews at Jerusalem, he reproves Saint Peter for doing it amongst the Gentiles at Antioch. Gal. 2.11,14. Nihil Paulo indignum, quod efficit Deo credere, saith Hilary, That which brings a Jew or Gentile to Christ, may well become Saint Paul an Apostle of Christ, when we so please men, that we please God also, we cannot please them enough. But when the Case is otherwise, when the Truth and Honour of God were in hazard, than Saint Paul is in a manner Saul again, and breaths forth threaten and slaughter, He strikes Elymas the Sorcerer Blind; Delivers up the Incestnous Corinthian to Satan, 
1 Cor. 4.21.  and when they were puffed up, was ready with his Goad to let out the wind; comes toward them in that Imperious strain; What will ye? shall I come unto you with a rod? which I am sure are not pleasing words, sed quae cum ictu quodam andiuntur, but such as are Herd with a kind of smart, and leave an impression behind them; for quam exerta acies macherae spiritualis? as Tertullian speaks; hownaked and keen is the edge of his Reprehension, In faciem impingit, he strikes them on the face, in os caedit, he beats them on the mouth, jam, vero & singulari stylo figit, and sometimes points them out as a mark, and darts his Reprehension, and strikes it in them; what then would he do, if he lived now, and saw what we see?  
Thus you see, Both these are true; we may please men, and we may not please them; 
Ex Deo magia quam in con tumeliam Dei hominibus placendum. Hil. in Psal. 52.  we must please them, and we must not please men, if we will be the servants of Christ. For if you please, you may conceive that Relation betwixt God and Man; which is betwixt our Reason and our sense. Now sin may seem to be nothing else, but the Flattery of our Sense, because when I break the Law, my will stoops down to please my sense, and betray my reason; but yet when I please my sense, I do not always sin: for I may please my sense, and be Temperate; I may please my eye, and make a Covenant with it; I may please my Taste, and yet set a knife to my Throat; I may please my sense, and it may be my Health and Virtue as well as my sin; so in like manner, to please men against God is the basest slattery, and Saint Paul flings his Dart at it, but to please men in reference to God, is our Duty, and takes in the greatest part of Christianity; for thus to please men may be my Allegiance, my Reverence, my meekness, my Longanimity, my charitable care of my Brother, I may please my superior & obey him; I may please my obliged Brother, and forgive him; I may please the poor Lazar, and relieve him; I may please an erring Brother, and convert him, and in thus doing, I do that, which is pleasing both to God and man.  
What then is that, which here St. Paul condemns? Look into the Text, and you shall see Christ and men, as it were two opposite Terms; If the man be in Error, I must not please him in his Error; for Christ is Truth; If the man be in sin, I must not please him, for Christ is Righteousness; And in this case we must deal with men, as Saint Austin did with his Auditory, when he observed them negligent in their Duties; we must tell them that, which they are most unwilling to hear; Quod non vult is facere, Bonum est, saith he, That which you will not do; That which you are afraid of, and run from; That, which with all my Breath and Labour I cannot procure you to love, That is it which we call to do good. That which you deride; That which you Turn away the care from with scorn; That, which you loathe as poison, That which you persecute us for; Quod non vultis audire, verum est: That which you distaste, when you hear, as gall and Wormwood; That, which you will not Hear, That which you call strange Doctrine; That is Truth. As Petrarch told his friend; Si prodessevis, scribe, quod Doleam; 
Petrarch. l 7. de Re. F c. ult.  If you will profit and Improve me in the ways of Goodness, let your Pen drop Gall, writ something to me, which may trouble and grieve me to read; so when men stand in opposition to Christ, when men will neither hear his voice, nor follow him in his ways, but delight themselves in their own, and rest and please themselves in Error, as in Truth, to awake them out of this pleasant Dream, we must trouble them, we must thunder to them, we must disquiet and displease them; for who would give an Opiate Pill to these Lethargiques'? To please men then, is to tell a sick man, that he is well; a weak man, that he is strong, an erring man, That he is Orthodox; in stead of purging out the noxious Humour, to nourish and increase it, to smooth and strew the ways of Error with Roses, that men may walk with case and Delight, and even Dance to their Destruction; to find out their palate, and to fittit, to envenom that more which they affect, as Agrippina gave Claudius the Emperor Poison in a Mushroom: what a seditious Flatterer is in a Commonwealth, that a false Apostle is in the Church; For as the seditious Flatterer observes and learns the Temper and Constitution of the place he lives in, and so frames his speech and Behaviour, that he may seem to settle and establish that, which he studies to overthrow, to be a Patriot of the Public good, when he is but a Promoter of his private ends, to be a servant to the Commonwealth, when he is a Traitor; so do all Seducers and false Teachers; They are as loud for the Truth as the best Champions she hath, but either subtract from it, or add to it, or pervert and corrupt it, that so the Truth itself may help to usher in a lie: when the Truth itself doth not please us, any lie will please us, but than it must carry with it something of the Truth.  
For Instance: To acknowledge Christ, but with the Law, is a dangerous mixture (It was the Error of the Galatiams here) To magnisy Faith, and shut out Good Works, is a Dash; That we can do nothing without Grace, is a Truth, but when we will do nothing to impute it to the want of Grace, is a bold and unjust addition; To worship God in Spirit and Truth; our Saviour commands it, but from hence to conclude against outward worship, is an injurious Defalcation of a great part of our Duty. 
The Truth is corrupted, saith Nyssen. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Orat. 1. Cont. Ennom.  To stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, The Apostle commands it, but to stand so, as to rise up in the Face of the Magistrate, is a Gloss of Flesh and Blood, and corrupts the Text: Letevery soul be subject to the higher Powers, That's the text, but to be subject no longer than the Power is managed to our will, is a chain to bind Kings with, or a Hammer to bear all Power down, that we may tread it under our Feet; and when we cannot relish the text, these mixtures and Additions and Subtractions will please us. These hang as Jewels in our Ears; these please and kill us; beget nothing but a dead Faith, a graceless life; not Liberty, but Licentiousness, not Devotion, but Hypocrisy, not Religion, but Rebellion, not Saints, but Hypocrites, Libertines, and Traitors.  
And these we must avoid the rather, because they go hand in hand, as it were with the truth, and carry it along with them in their Company, 
Tert. de Proscript.  as Lewd persons do sometimes a Grave and Sober man, to countenance them in their sportiveness, and Debauchery. De nostro sunt, sed non nostrae, saith Tertul. They invade that Inheritance which Christ hath left his Church; some furniture, some colour, something they borrow from the truth, something they have of ours, but Ours they are not: And therefore as St. Ambrose adviseth Gratian the Emperor, of all Errors in Doctrine, we must beware of those, which come nearest, and border as it were upon the truth, and so draw it in to help to defeat itself; Because an open and manifest Error carries in its very forehead an Argument against itself, and cannot gain admittance, but with a veil, whereas these Glorious but painted Falsehoods find an easy entrance, and beg entertainment in the Name of truth itself; This is the Cryptick method, and subtle Artifice of men-pleasers, that is Men-deceivers, to grant something, that they may win the more, and that too, in the end, which they grant; not rudely at first to demolish the truth, but to let it stand, that they may the more securely raise up, and fix that Error with which it cannot stand long; Saint Paul saw it well enough, though the Galatians did not; If you be circumcised, Christ profiteth you nothing, That is, is to you, as if there were no Christ at all. For if the false Apostles had flatly denied Christ, the Galatians would have been as ready, as Saint Paul, to have Cut them off, because they had received the Gospel; but joining and presenting the Law with Christ, they did deceive, and please them well, who began in the Spirit, and did acknowledge him, but would not renounce the Law, propter metum Judaeorunt, for fear of their Brethren the Jews.  
Now these men-pleasers, these Crows, which devour not dead, 
Dictum Diogenis. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Athen: Deipnos. l. 6. c. 17.  but living men, are from an Evil Egg, and Beginning, are bred and hatched in the dung, in the love of this world, and are so proud and fond of their Original, that it is their labour, their Religion, and main design of their life, to bring the Truth, Religion, and Christ himself in subjection under it, and to this end are very fruitful to bring forth those misshapen issues, which savour of the earth and corruption, and have only the name of Christ fastened to them, as a badge, to commend them, & bring them to that end, for which they had a being; which is to gain the world, in the Name; but in despite of Christ.  
And these are they, who as Saint Peter speaks, make merchandise of men's souls. 2. Pet. 2.3. nummularii sacerdotes, as Cyprian calls them, Doctors of the Mint, who love the Image of Caesar more than of God, and had rather see the one in a piece of Gold, than the other renewed and stamped in a mortal man; and this Image they carry along with them whither soever they go, and it is as their Holy Ghost to inspire them; for most of the Doctrines they Teach, savour of that mint, and the same stamp is on them both; The same face of Mammon which is in their Heart, is visible also in their Doctrine. 
H s 4. ●.  Thus Hosea complained of the false Prophets in his Time, peccata populi mci come derunt, They cat up the sin of the People, that is, by pleasing them, they have consented to their sin, and from hence reaped gain (for flatterry is a livelihood) or they did not seriously reprehend the sins of the People, that they might reeive more sacrifices on which they might feed; some render it, Levabant animum suum ad peccata populi: they lifted up their soul, anhelabant, they even panted after their sin, desired that they might sinne, that they might make advantage, and so made them evil, to make themselves Rich. For from hence, from hence, from that for which we cannot find a name, nor have a Thought bad enough, from a desire to be rich, breaks forth that mark of a slave, our desire to please; Saint Paul hath made a window into their breasts, that we may see them with the same hand coining their doctrine and Money; 
Rom. 16.18.  They that are such, serve not the Lord Jesus, but their own Belly, and by good words, and f●…re Speeches, deceive the Hearts of the simple. Serpents they are to Deceive, and the Curse of the serpent is upon them, upon their belly they go, and they eat Dust all the days of their life. For a wonderful Thing it is to see, how the love of the world will Transform men into any shape, sometimes to fawn like a Dog, sometimes to rage like a Lion, and then to lurk like a Fox; how, like the Charity of the Gospel, it makes them to bear all Things, believe all Things, endure all T hangs; Contumelias in quaestn habere, et injuriis pasci, to count Contumelies gain, and to feed, and feed sweetly on Injuries, to speak what they do not think, to like what they condemn, to mortify themselves, to eye, and cringe, and bow, and fall to the ground, which is a kind of Mortification, more than they will do for Christ, who brings Poverty, disgrace, and contempt, and hath no reward, but that which is laid up for the future. This brought Plato the great Philosopher a shipboard to sail to Dionysius his Court, 
Naz. Or. 3.  and there laid him down at his feet, this made him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, etc. as Nazianz. speaks, prefer a Halfpenny before his goods; This was the evil Spirit in the mouth of those lying prophets, which did prevail with Ahab to go up, and fall at Ramoth Gilead. This makes men speak, not with men's Persons, but with their Fartunes, not with thy sinner, but with the rich and Noble man; and this Spirit is abroad still, and persuades some into their Graves, and some into Hell, raises every storm, and every Tempest; and makes that desolation which we see upon the Earth. 
Val. Max. l. 4. c. 3.  We read that Aristippus found Diogenes washing his Herbs and Roots, his daily food, and in a kind of pity or scorn, told him, That if he would flatter Dionysius, he need not eat these; nor tie himself to such course far; but Diogenes replies like a Philosopher, and returns his saying upon him, Si tu ista esse velles, Dionysio non adulareris, If thou couldst content thyself, and feed on these, thou wouldst never be so base, as to flatter Dionysius.  
And certainly, if we could with the Lyric, be content with Nature for our purveyour, and look for no supply but from her Hand, Having Food and Raiment, as Saint Paul speaks, could we be there with content; did we not enlarge our desires as Hell, and send our hopes afar off, did we not love the world, and the things of this world, we should not thus debase, and annihilate ourselves, as being men ourselves, to make ourselves the shadows of others, in their morning to rise with them, at their noon and highest, to come up and close with them, and then at their night, fall out, and leave them in the dark; we should not mould and fit our best part, to their worst, our Reason to their lust, nor make our fancy the Elaboratory to work out such Essays, which may please and destroy them; we should not foment the Anger of the Revenger to consume him; nor help the Covetous to bury himself alive, nor the Ambitious to break his Neck; nor the Schismatic, to rend the Seamlesse coat of Christ, nor the seditious, to swim to Hell in a River of Blood; but we should bind the Revengers Hands, break the Misers I dolls, bring down the Ambitious to the Dust make up those rents which Faction hath made, and confine the Seditious to his own sphere and Place; for who would favour or uphold such Monsters as these, but for pay and salary? In a word, If every man did hate the World, every man would love his Brother; If every man did keep himself unspotted of the World, every man would be his Brother's Keeper; when the world pleaseth us, we are as willing to please the world, and we make it our stage, and Act our parts; we call ourselves Friends, and are but Parasites; we call ourselves Prophets, and are but Wizards and Jugglers, we call ourselves Apostles, and are Seducers, we call ourselves Brethren, though it be in Evil, and like Democritus his Twins, we live and die together, we flatter, and are flattered, we are blind, and leaders of the Blind, and fall together with them into the Ditch, and bring our Burden after us, we please men to please ourselves, lull them into a pleasant Dream, and our Damnation sleepeth not.  
You see now what it is to please men, and from whence it proceeds, from whence it springs, even from that bitter root, the root of all evil, the Love of the World.  
Let us now Behold that huge Distance and Inconsistency, which is between these two, The pleasing of men, and the service of Christ.  
If I yet please men, I am not the servant of Christ.  
I am thy Servant, 
Hil. in Loc.  saith David, Psal. 119. Grant me understanding, to know what it is to be thy Servant. Latet sub familiaribus verbis maxima Fidei & conscientiae professio, saith Hilary, By this familiar word of Servant, we bind our Faith and Conscience to the will and command, to the beck of him we serve. The servant of Christ? It is a title too great, too high an Honour for mortal man; too high for an Emperor, for an Apostle, for an Angel, for a Seraphim; but since he is pleased to give it, we are bound to make it Good, That every Action and motion, every thought of ours may be to him; That whether we live, we may live unto him, whether we die, we may die unto him, That whatsoever we do, we may be the Lords.  
And first; we cannot do both, not serve men, and Christ, no more than you can draw the same straight line to two points, to touch them both; you cannot, saith Christ, serve God and Mammon. One Master may have many servants, but one servant cannot have many Masters; Imperium dividi potest, Amor non potest, Power and command may stretch, and spread, and divide itself to many, but Love and Observance cannot be carried, and levelled but on one, nor can the mind, saith Quintilian, seriously Intent many things at once, Quocunque respexerit, desinit intueri quod propositum fuerat, to whatsoever it turns itself, it turns from that which it first looked upon, and loseth one Engagement in another, because it cannot fit and apply itself to both. How then can one and the same man bestow himself upon Christ, and upon the world? For it is not with the will and Affections, as it is with the Intellectual faculty. The understanding may easily sever one Thing from another, and understand them both, nay, it hath power to abstract, and separate Things really the same, and consider them in this Difference; but it is the property of the will and Affections, in unum ferri, & see in unitatem colligere, to collect and unite, and make itself one with the Object, nor can our Desires be carried to two contrary Objects at one and the same Time: we may apprehend Christ as righteous and Holy, and the World and Riches of it, as vanity itself, but we cannot at once serve Christ as Just, and Holy, and love the World and the vanities thereof; Our Saviour tells us, we shall love the one, and hate the other, lean to the one, and despise the other; If it be a love to the one, it will be at best, but a liking of the other; If it a will to the one, it will be but a velleity to the other; If it be a look on the one, it will be but a glance on the other; And this liking this velleity, This glance are no better than disservice, than hatred, and Contempt: For these proceed from the understanding, but my love from my will, which is fixed, not where I approve, but where I choose. 'Tis easy to say, and we say it too often, for the Devil is ready to suggest it; 'Tis true: we set our Affections upon things below, but yet so, That we do not omit the Duties of Divine worship; we are willing to please men, but we doubt not, but we may please Christ also; we are indeed Time-servers, but we are frequent Hearers of his Word: we pour Oil into our Brother's ears, but we drop sometimes a Penny into the Treasury; Thus we please others, and we please ourselves, we betray others, and are our own Parasites, but Christ is ready to seal up our lips with an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, 
Matth. 6.24.  No man can serve two Masters. So that you see what a weak Foundation that Hope hath, which is thus built up upon a Divided love and service, it is built in the Air, nay, it hath not so sure a Basis, it is built upon nothing; It is raised upon Impossibility.  
Secondly: The Servant must have his eye upon his Master, and as he sees him do, must do likewise: Now Christ is called God's Servant, Isai. 62.10. and he broke through Poverty, Disgrace, and the Terrors of Death itself, that he might do his Father's will; Omitted no tittle or lota of it, but he that would not break a bruised reed, shook the Cedars of Libanus, pronounced as many woes to the Pharisees, as they had sins, calls Herod Fox, plucks off every visor, ploughs up every Conscience, and thus shook the Powers of Hell, and Destroyed the Kingdom of Satan; for he came not to do his own, but his Fathers will. Look upon his Acts of mercy; even them he did not to please men; non habent divina adulationem, 
Hil. de Trin. l. 2.  saith Hilary, His divine works, his works of Love and Compassion had Nothing of Flattery in them: He did them not as seeking his own Glory; for he had a Choir of Angels to chant his praise; he did them not to flatter men; for he needed not that which is ours; for the world was his, and all that therein is. Power cannot flatter, and Mercy is so intent on its work, that it thinks of nothing else; to work wonders, to please men, were the greatest wonder of all; And thus should we look upon him, and Teach our brethren, as he wrought miracles; not for praise, which may make us worse; not for Riches, which may make us poorer than we were; but beseech them in Christ's stead, and in the Person of Christ, and speak like him in whose mouth there was neither flattery nor guile; speak the Truth, though it displease, speak the Truth, though the Heathen Rage, and the People imagine a vain Thing; speak the Truth, though, for aught we know, it may be the last word we speak; speak the Truth, though it nail us to the Cross; where we shall most resemble him with this Title, The servant of Christ, as his was, The King of the Jews. He that takes Nothing but his Name, serves the world, he that flatters, when he bids him rebuke, and pleaseth others when they displease Christ, is not his servant, but his enemy, but one of those many Antichrists; or if his Servant, such a servant, as Peter was, when he denied him, as Judas, when he betrayed him; and he will take it for more disservice to betray him in his Members, then in his Person, and is troubled more at the sight of those wounds which are made in his Mystical Body, than he was at those which were made in his flesh; for he willingly suffered the pains of Death, that they might not die; Himself was lead to Death, as a sleep to the slaughter, and opened not his mouth, but when he saw havoc made of his Church; he cried out, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? and in this, every false Teacher is worse than Peter, when he was at the worst, every flatterer is worse than Judas; every Seducer is worse than the Jews, when they nailed him to the Cross.  
For lastly, 
Servus pro nullo est.  A servant is nothing, is no person in Law, hath no power of his own, servitus morti aequiparatur, say the Civilians, a servant is as a Dead man, and cannot Act nor move of himself, but is Actuated as it were, by the Power and command of his Lord and Master, and never goes, but when he says go, never Doth, but what he bids him do, and doth not interpret, but execute his Will. Non oportet villicum plus sapere, quam Dominum, saith Columella; It is a most unfit, and disadvantageous thing for the Farmer or Husbandman to be wiser than his Lord; For when the Lord commandeth one thing, and the servant thinks it fit to do another, the crop and harvest will be but Thin; and it is so in our spiritual Husbandry; It savours of too much boldness and presumption, for the servant to be wiser than his Master, and there will be but small increase, when the Master calls for the whip, and the servant brings the merry Harp and the Lute, when he calls for a Talon to reckon but a mite, and when he writes a Hundred, to take the Bill, and set down Fifty. It is the greatest folly in the World to be thus wise, when wisdom itself prescribes; when he condemns the love of the World, to put in Immoderate, and yet keep no moderation in our Love; when he forbids us to be Angry, to lay hold of that without a cause; and yet suffer, every breath to raise a Tempest in us: when he says, swear not all, to persuade men to swear, and swear again, though it be against a former Oath; when he bids us pray for our Enemies, to be so bold, as to curse our Friends and our Brethren. It is a great and dangerous folly, thus to trifle with our Master, and delude his Precepts; and what do we with these Distinctions, and limitations, and mitigations, but shake Christ's Livery off from our backs? and Thrust ourselves out of his service? and than Tell me whose servants are we? Quot nascuntur Domini? For this one Master, whose service we have cast off, how many Masters and Tyrants do we serve? servants to the Flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof; servants to Covetousness, which sets us with the Gibeonites to be hewers of wood, and diggers of water, condemns us to the Mines, and Brick-kiln; servants to Ambition, which will carry thee from step to step, from degree to degree, till thou break thy neck; servants to pleasure, which like the Egyptian Thiefs, will Embrace and strangle thee; and Servants to other men; would that were all; nay, but to other men's wills and Lusts, which change as the wind, now embracing, anon loathing, now ready to join with that, which in the twinkling of an eye they fly from; et quot rascuntur Domini? How many Masters must thou serve in one man? servants to their Lusts, which are as unsatiable as the Grave; servants unto Error, which is blind; and to sin, which is Darkness itself, even mancipia Satanae, the bondslaves of Satan, with Canaan's curse upon us, Gen. 9 A servant of servants shall he be. Non sum servus Christi, I am not the servant of Christ, is Anathema Maran-atha, the bitterest Curse that is.  
For Conclusion then, Let them who are set apart to lead others in the ways of Truth and Righteousness, take heed they lead them not in the ways of Cain, and take from them their spiritual, as he did from his Brother his Temporal life. Let them who subscribe themselves Your servants in Christ; (In every Epistle thus they writ) be careful to make it good, That their Epistle prove not a Compliment, and their subscription, a lie. Let them who do 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, fit their conversation and Doctrine to the Times, and so make them worse; who force the word of God, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, to speak in favour of Philip, or any great Potentate, 
Athen. Deipn. l. 12. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Scire uti Forc.  as he was; let them who make it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a buskin to be pulled on, and fit any design, any enterprise, let them remember what they are called, and they call themselves the servants of Christ, of that Christ, who will one day call them to an Account, and require the blood of those, who are under their charge, at their Hands; who shall call upon them as Augustus Caesar did upon Quinctilius Varus; Quinctili Vare, red legiones. Give an account of your stewardship, where are the Legions; those souls which I committed to your hands? The souls of them you betrayed to the world; and left them Mammonists; the souls of them you betrayed to Pride, & made them Factious; The souls of them you betrayed to discontent, and made them seditious? the souls of them you betrayed to cruelty, and made them Murderers? Their blood will be upon you, and verily it shall be required of this Generation.  
And let them who are Taught, remember, They are hought with a price, and are the servants of Christ, and cleave fast to him, and not to be driven from him with every wind of Doctrine, not to Judge of the Doctrine by the person, but to judge of the person by his Doctrine; for in Christianity saith Saint Hierom, Non multum differt decipere, & decipi, there is no great difference between these two, To take a cheat, or to offer one; for both are deceived, and both perish; The one comes with a veil, the other is willing to draw it over his face, The one puts out his eyes, and the other is willing to be blind, and both rejoice at the work, both cry, so so, Thus we would have it. When we see so many, so diffident in all things, but that which should fit them for happiness, taking nothing upon Trust, but the Doctrines of men: when we shall see them have men's persons in Admiration, and their eyes dazzle at every Mushroom in Divinity, that grows up in a Night; when we shall see them Debauch their reason, and deliver up their understandings and wills to a Face, to a voice, to the Gesture, and Behaviour, and sleight of men, when every empty cloud that comes towards them shall be taken for heaven, and he that speaks not so much reason as Balaams' Ass, shall be received for a Prophet; when men are so inclined, so ready, so ambitious to be deceived, we need not wonder to see so many Blind Bartimeus' in our streets, that Grope at noonday, and stumble at every straw, That blindness is happened to Israel, That Truth is become a Monster, and error a Saint, we need not wonder that the Pharisees have more Disciples than Christ. Men and Brethren, what should I say? why should you desire to be pleased? if we thus please you, we damn you: why should we study to please you? if we study to please you, we damn ourselves. 'Tis not your Favour, your Applause which we affect, we know well enough, out of what Treasury those winds come, and how uncertainly they blow; one applause of Conscience is worth all the Triumphs in the World. Bring then the Balance of the Sanctuary, The Touchstone of the Scripture; If our Doctrine be not minus Habens, be not light, but full weight; If it be not Refuse Silver, but current Coin, and bear no other Image, but of the King of Kings, even for the Truth's sake, for our common Master's sake, whose servants we are, lay aside all malice, and guile, and Hypocrisy, and receive it, That you may grow thereby; but if nothing yet be Truth, which doth not please you, than what shall we say? but even tell you another Truth, vero verius, most true it is, you will not hear the Truth.  
And therefore in the last place; 
Heb. 10 14. Ephes. 4.  Let us all, both Teachers and Hearers, purge out this evil Humour of pleasing, and being pleased, and let us, as the Apostle exhorts, Consider one another, to provoke unto love, and Good works; Let us speak Truth, every one to his Neighbour; For we are members one of another. This is the true and surest Method of pleasing one another; for Flattery, like the Bee, carries Honey in its mouth, but hath a sting in its Tail; but Truth is sharp and bitter at first, but at last more pleasant than Manna; He that would seal up thy lips for the Truth, which thou speak'st, will at last kiss those lips, and Bless God in the Day of his Visitation. And this if we do, we shall please one another 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, to Edification, and not unto ruin; And thus all shall be pleased, the Physician, that he hath his Intent, and the Patient in his Health, The strong shall be pleased in the weak, and the weak in the strong, The wise in the Ignorant, and the Ignorant in the wise, and Christ shall be well pleased to see Brethren thus walk together in Unity, strengthening and inciting one another in the ways of Righteousness, and when we have thus walked hand in hand together to our journeys End, shall admit us into his presence, where there is fullness of joy and pleasures for evermore.    

 blazon or royal coat of arms of England and Wales HONI ●…T QVI MAL Y PENSE  
THE EIGHTEENTH SERMON. BEING A PREPARATION TO THE HOLY COMMUNION.  1 COR. 11.25. 
This do ye, as oft as you drink it, in remembrance of me.  
THat which is made to degenerate from its first institution, is so much the worse, by how much the better it would have been, if it had been levelled and carried on to that end for which it was ordained: the truth of which is plain and visible, as in many others, so in this great business of the Administration of the Lords Supper, which in its right and proper use might have been as physic to purge, and as manna to feed the soul to eternal life; but being either raised higher, or brought lower than itself, either made more than it is, or less than it is; either made miraculous or nothing, hath become fatal and destructive, and hath left most men guilty of the Body and Blood of the Lord. For some we see, have quite changed and perverted the Ordinance of Christ, scarce left any shadow or sign of its first institution; have made of a Supper for the living a Sacrifice for the dead, turned the Minister into a sacrificing Priest, Bread and Wine into very Flesh and Blood, and Bones; the remembrance of Christ's Death into the adoration of the outward Elements; have written books, filled many volumes in setting out the miraculous virtue it hath, of which we may say as Pliny did of the writings of those magical Physicians, that they have been published non sine contemptu & irrisu generis humani, not without a kind of contempt, and in derision of all the world, as if there breathed not in it any, but such who were either so brutish as not to know, or such fools as to believe whatsoever fell from the pen of such idle dreamers. Others have fell short, have been more coldly affected, and have lost themselves in a strange indifferency, as not fully resolved whether it be an institution that binds or no; and look upon it rather as an invention of man, than the word and command of Christ. Others run far enough from Superstition, as they think, and are great enemies to Popery, and yet unawares carry a Pope with them in their belly, lean too much to the opus operatum, to the bare outward action, think what they will not say, that if they come to the Feast, it is not much material what garment they come in, that the outward elements are of virtue to sanctify the Profaner himself; that though they have been haters of God, yet they may come to his Table; though they have crucified Christ, yet here they may taste and see how gracious he is. These extremes have men run upon, whilst they did neglect the plain and easy rule by which they were to walk; the one upon the rock of Superstition, the other, as it falls out most commonly, not only from the error which they were afraid of, but from the truth itself, which should be set up in its place; we see at the first institution almost, and when this blessed Table was as it were first spread, that many abuses crept in to poison the feast, some by factiousness, others by partiality, and some by drunkenness, v. 21. profaned it, did come and sit down, and eat and drink, but to their punishment and damnation, saith S. Paul: and therefore having laid open their gross errors and profanations, having set their irregularities in order before them, he prescribes the remedy, and calls them back to the first institution, and the example of Christ himself, v. 23, 24. First he shows the manner of Christ's institution, He took the bread, and gave thanks, broke it, and gave it them: Secondly, The mystery signified thereby: The breaking of the Bread, and pouring out of the Wine, representing the bruising of his Body, and shedding of his Blood for the remission of sins; and last of all, the end of this institution, and of this celebration of the Lords Supper, in the words of my Text; This do, as oft as you do it, in remembrance of me.  
Which words I read to you as S. Paul's, but indeed they are Christ's, delivered by him, and received from Christ, as he tells us, v. 23. In which you may behold his love streaming forth, as his blood did on the Cross; for not content once to die for us, he will appear unto us as a crucified Saviour to the end of the world, and calls upon us to look upon him and remember him, whom our sins have pierced; presents himself unto us in these outward elements of Bread and Wine, and in the breaking of the one, and pouring out of the other is evidently set forth before our eyes, and even crucified amongst us, as S. Paul speaks, Gal. 3.1. thus condescending and applying himself to our infirmities, that he may heal us of our sins, and make and keep us a peculiar people to himself.  
And since the words are his, we must in the first place, look up and hearken to him who breathes forth this love; secondly, consider what task his love hath set us, what we are to do; thirdly, ex praescripto agere, since it is an injunction, whose every accent is love, do it after that form which he hath set down, after the manner which he hath prescribed: So the parts are four; First, the Author of the Institution: Secondly, the duty enjoined, to do this: Thirdly, to do it often: Lastly, the end of the Institution, or the manner how we must do it; we must do it in remembrance of him, i.e. of all those benefits, and graces, and promises which flowed with his blood from his very heart, which was sick with love; and with these we shall exercise your Christian devotion at this time.  
And first, we must look upon the Author of the Institution; for in every action we do, it is good to know by what authority we do it; and this is the very order of nature, saith S. Austin, 
Aug. l. 1. de Morib. Eccl. c. 2.  ut rationem praecedat autoritas, that Authority should go before and have the pre-eminence of Reason, that where Reason is weak, Authority may come in as a supply to strengthen and settle it. For what can Reason see in Bread and Wine to quicken or raise a soul? what is Bread to a wounded spirit, or Wine to a sick soul? 
1 Cor. 8.8.  For neither if we eat are we the better, the more accepted, nor if we eat not, are we the worse, saith S. Paul: 'Tis true, the outward elements are indifferent in themselves, but authority changes, & even transelements them, giveth them virtue & efficacy, a commanding power, even the force of a Law. He that put virtue into the clay & spittle to cure a bodily eye, may do the same to bread and wine to heal our spiritual blindness; he that made them a staff to our body, may make them also a prop to our souls, when they droop and sink; and than if he say, this do ye, though our reason should be at a stand, and boggle at it, as at a thing which holds no proportion with a soul, yet we must do it, because he says it. It may be said, Is not his word sufficient, which is able to save our souls? is it not enough for me to beat down my body, to pour forth my prayers, to crucify my flesh? No: nothing is sufficient but what the authority of Christ hath made so; nescit judicare, quisquis didicit perfectè obedire is true in matters of this nature; we have no judgement of our own, our wisdom is to obey, and let him alone to judge what is fit, who alone hath power to command. Authority must not be disputed with, nor can it hear why should I do this? for such a question denies it to be authority; if it were possible that God, to try our obedience, should bid us sow the rocks, or water a dry stick, or teach a language which we do not know (as the Jesuits do their Novices) a necessity would lie upon us, and woe unto us, if we did it not; how much rather than should we obey, when he commands for our advantage; gives us a law, that he may give us more grace, binds us to that which will raise us nearer to him; when he spreads his table, prepares his viands, bids us eat and drink, and then says grace; bids a blessing himself unto it, that we may grow up in his Favour, and be placed amongst those great examples of eternal happiness?  
Look not then on the Minister howsoever qualified, for a brass seal makes the same impression which a ring of Gold doth, and it is not material whether the seal be of base or purer mettle, so the image and character be authentic, saith Nazianz. Look not on the outward elements, for of themselves they have no power at all, no more than the water of Jordan had to cure a Leper, but their power and virtue is from above; the force and virtue of a Sacrament lies in the institution, all the power it hath is from the Author. Before it was but Bread, but common Bread, now it is Manna, the bread of strength, the bread of Angels; and this truth thou mayst build upon, nor doth the Church of Rome deny it; and though they have added five Sacraments, and may add as many more as they please, Quicquid arant homines, navigant, aedificant, any thing we do may be made a Sacrament (when the fancy is working she may spin out what she please) yet they cannot deny that every Sacrament must have immediate institution from Christ himself, from his own mouth, or else it is of no validity, and therefore are forced to pretend it, though they cannot prove it, in those which themselves have added for their own advantage. Think then when thou hearest these words, Take, eat, this is my body which was broken, thou hearest thy Saviour himself speaking from heaven; think not of the Minister, or the meanness of the Elements, but think of him who took thee out of thy blood, and sanctified thee with his, and by the same power is able to sanctify these outward Elements, by the virtue of whose institution, The cup of blessing, which we bless, which he blessed first, shall be to every one that comes worthily, the Communion of the Blood, and the Bread which we break, which he first broke, the Communion of the Body of Christ, 1 Cor. 10.16. And thus much of the Author.  
Let us now consider what he enjoins us to do; and the command is to do this, that is, to do as he did, though to another end, to take Bread, and to give Thanks, and eat it, and so of the Cup, to take and drink it; and if this be done with an eye to the Author, and a lively faith in him, this is all (for this table was spread not for the dead, but for the living) this, I say, is all: but some have stretched this word beyond its proper and natural signification; others, and that a multitude, do rest under the shadow of the word, content themselves in the outward action, do do it and no more, which indeed is not to do it. For though this word to do be not of so large a signification as the Church of Rome hath drawn it out in, that they might build an Altar, and offer up Christ again, which they say is to remember him, yet is it not so scant and narrow as ignorance and profaneness make it; verba non sono, sed sensu sapiunt, saith Hilary, 
Hilar. advers. Const. Aug.  we must not tie ourselves to the sound, but lay hold on the sense of the words; and this word to do, though it be less than the little cloud in the book of the Kings, nothing near so big as a man's hand, yet if it be interpreted, it will spread and be as large as heaven itself, and contains within its sphere and compass all those stars, those graces and virtues which will entitle us to bliss, by fitting and qualifying of us to do it; for indeed, non fit quod non fit legitimè, that is not done which is not done as it should be; those duties in Scripture which are shut up in a word, are of a large and diffusive interpretation; when God bids us hear, he bids us obey; when he bids us believe, he bids us love; when he awakes our understanding, he commands our hand; when he bids us do this, he bids us perfect our work; for hearing is not hearing without obedience; faith is dead, if it work not by charity; and knowledge is but a dream, without practice; and we do not that, which we do not as we should. To do this then is not barely to take the Bread and eat it; this Judas himself might do, this he doth, that doth it to his own damnation; and therefore though it be not now common Bread, and common Wine, but consecrated and set apart for this holy use, yet we must be careful that we attribute no more unto them, than Christ the author doth; we must not suffer our eyes to dazzle at the outward Elements, nor must we rest in the outward action; for this were in a manner to transubstantiate the elements, and bring the body and blood of Christ into them, which nothing can do but faith and repentance; this were to make the very action of receiving it, opus privilegiatum, as Gerson speaks, to give it a greater prerogative than was ever granted out of the court of heaven. This were to rest in the means as in the end, and at once to magnify and profane it; This were to take it as our first parents did the Apple, That our eyes may be opened, and then to see nothing but our own shame; this were to eat, and to be damned.  
But this we shall not need to insist upon, for it is sufficient to point out to it, as to a thing to be done, and that we may do it besides the Authority, and command, and love of the Author, we have all those Motives and inducements which use to stir us up and incite us unto action, even then when our hands are folded, and we are unwilling to move. As, 1. the fitness and applyablenesse of it to our present condition, 2. the profit and advantage it may bring, 3. the pleasure and delight it carries along with it, 4. the necessity of it, which are as so many allurements and invitations, as so many winds to drive us on, and make us fly to it as the Doves to their windows.  
And 1. it fitteth and complyeth, as it were, with our present condition, blanditur nostrae infirmitati, and even flatters, and comforts, and rouseth up our weakness and infirmity; as our Saviour speaks upon another occasion, This voice, this institution came for our sake: we walk by faith, 
2 Cor. 5.7.  saith the Apostle, & hoc est nostrae insirmitatis, saith the Father, and this is a sign and an Argument of humane Infirmity, that we walk by faith; that God can come no nearer to us, nor we to him; that we see him only with that eye, which when it is clearest, sees him but as in a glass, darkly. And therefore as God sent Adam into the world, and gave him adjutorium simile sibi, a help convenient and meet for him, Gen. 2. so doth he place us in his Church, and affords us many helps meet for us, and attempered to our frailty and humave Infirmity: He speaks to our Ear, and he speaks to our eye, he speaks in Thunder, and he speaks in a still voice; he passeth his promise, and seals, and confirms it; he preaches to us by his word, and he preaches to us by these Ocular sermons, by visible Elements, by water to purge us, and by Bread and Wine to strengthen us in his grace, and omits nothing that is meet and convenient for us. When God told the people of Israel, that he would no longer go before them himself, he withal tells them, he would send his Angel, which should seed them; and when we are not capable of a nearer approach, he sends his Angels, his words, his Apostles, his Sacraments, which like those ministering spirits minister for them who are heirs of Salvation; and not content with the general declaration of his mind, he adds unto it certain seals and external signs, that we may even see, and handle, and taste the word of life; and as it was said by Laban and Jacob, when they made a Covenant, 
Gen. 31.48.  this stone shall be witness between us: so God doth say to thy soul by these outward Elements, This Covenant have I made with thee, and this that thou seest, shall witness between thee and me. Do thou look upon it, and bring a bleeding renewed heart with thee, and then Do this, and I will look upon it as upon the Rainbow, and remember my Covenant, which was made in the blood of my Son: I thus frame and apply myself to thee in things familiar to thy sight, that thou mayst draw nearer and nearer to that light, which now thy mortal eye, thy frailty and infirmity cannot attain to. And shall we not meet and embrace that help which is so fitted and proportioned to us?  
Secondly, profit is a lure, and calls all men after it, and if you ask with the Apostle, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉; what profit is there? we may answer with him; much every manner of way: For what is profit but the improvement of our estate, the bettering of our condition? as in the increase of jacob's Cattell, the doubling of Jobs sheep, as when David's sheephook was changed into a Sceptre, here was improvement and advantage: And this we find in our spiritual addresses, in our reverend access to this Table, a great improvement, in some thirty, in some sixty, in some an hundred fold; a will intended, a love exalted, our hope increased, our faith quickened, more earnestly looking on God, more compassionately on our Brethren; more light in our understanding, more heat in our affections, more constancy in our Patience; every vicious inclination weakened, every virtue rooted and established; what is but brass it refines into Gold, raiseth the man, the Earthy man to the participation of a Divine nature. And shall we not be covetous of that which is so profitable and advantageous?  
Thirdly, Pleasure is attractive, is eloquent, and pleads for admittance; who will not do that, which brings so much delight and pleasure when 'tis done? and here in this action of worthy receiving it is, not that short, transitory Meteor, the flattery and titillation of the outward man, but that new heaven, which reason and Religion create in the mind, the joy of harvest as the Prophet speaks, for here we reap in joy, what we sowed in tears; the joy and triumph of a Conqueror, for here we tread down our enemy under our feet; the joy of a prisoner set at liberty, for this is our Jubilee. And such a joy the blood of Christ, if it be tasted and well digested, must necessarily bring forth, a pure, refined, spiritual, heavenly joy; 
1 Pet. 1.7.  precious blood saith Saint Peter, and not to be shed for a trifle, for that joy which is no better than madness: and the blood of an Immaculate Lamb, and not to be poured forth for a stained, wavering, fugitive joy, for a joy as full of pollution, as the world and the flesh, from whence it sprung; bring but a true taste with thee, a soul purged from those vicious humours which vitiate and corrupt it, and here is not only Bread and Wine, but living bread, bread that putteth gladness into the heart, more than Corn and Wine can, Psalm 4. Here is Christ, here is joy, here is heaven itself. And shall we not do that, which fills the heart with so much joy in the doing it? shall we not take and eat that, which is so pleasant to the taste?  
Last of all, it is not only convenient, pleasant, and profitable, but it is necessary to do it: for if this Sacrament could have been well spared, that men might have well kept the law of the inward man without it; our Lord who came to beat down all the Rites and Ceremonies of the law would not have raised up this; but he knew it necessary, and therefore left it upon record, as binding as a law, and for aught we find, nay (without all doubt) did never recall or dispense with it. Do this is plain, and do it often is plain enough, but do it not, or do it seldom is never read; but he calls, and commands us to his table, to feed on the body and blood of Christ, and in the strength of it to walk before him and be perfect; that when our souls be run to decay, when good habits are weakened, and the graces of God discoloured and darkened in us, when our knees are enfeebled, and our hands hang down; when our faculties begin to shrink, and be parched, as with the drought of summer, we may come to this fountain and fill our cisterns, and recover our former strength and beauty. Our fault it is and a great one, to be ever enquiring what binds, and what is necessary, and if necessity drive us not, like dull beasts we will not mend our pace, and are more led by Omri's statutes, by humane laws, than Christ's institution; when, if we rightly weigh it, whatsoever is convenient for us, whatsoever may be advantageous to us in the service of our Lord, should be as powerful with us, as if it came under the imperial form of a Law; and what is convenient, and fitted to us in such a case, is also necessary for us in the same condition; necessary I say, if a more violent necessity come not to cross and hinder it: for when nothing is wanting, but a will; then a necessity lies upon us, and woe unto us, if we do it not. So now you have them all four; and to conclude this, if these will not quicken and move us to come, we are dead in sin, and have lost our taste: Will convenience move us? (we talk much of it) here it is a duty fitted and proportioned to our present condition: Will profit move us? and whom doth not profit add a wing to? lo here it is in this duty, the due performance of which repays all our cost and pain with interest. Will pleasure move us? and whom doth not pleasure transport? here is joy, here is paradise, here is pleasure, and there is none but it. Last of all, will necessity move us? it is said that will drive us, and if the rest be but gentle gales, this is as a whirlwind; behold here is necessity, a duty as necessary as our own wants, and the authority of our High Priest and King can make it, who hath not only commanded us to do it, but to do it often, which now offers itself to our consideration.  
As often as you do it, implies a doing it often; 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 includes a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, and doth not leave it at large to our will and pleasure, as an arbitrary thing, to be taken up when our discretion shall appoint the time. I will not be so bold as to prescribe how often, nor is it necessary to be determined; every man's want and necessity in this should be a law unto him, and as oft as he finds his soul to droop and faint, here he is to refresh it; as oft as he feels the inward man to decay, here to repair it; as oft as he sees the temple of the holy Ghost to gather dust and filth, here to sweep and purge it; when his faith gins to fail, here to confirm and strengthen it: If we come like rude and unmannerly guests, once is too often; but if we purge and cleanse our hearts, if our stomaches be clean, if we come prepared for the feast, often we may come, but we cannot come too often. Sic vive, saith Saint Ambrose, ut quotidiè mereare accipere; 
Si quotidianus est cibus, cur post annum sumis? Amb. l. 6. de Sacram. c. 4. Cypr. ep. 54. & 69.  so pass every day of thy life, that thou mayst be fit to do it every day: I will not urge nor bind you to the practice of the first Christians, who received every day, because in time of persecution, as children appointed to die, they looked upon every day as their last; although Saint Cyprian will tell us they did it also in times of peace, and Saint Austin calls it Quotidianum ministerium Dominici corporis, 
Augustin. ep. 180.  a daily office and ministry. The truth is, the Sacrament is fit for every day, but we are not every day fit for it, and in this different variety of circumstances of time, and the dispositions and qualifications of men, every man must be his own judge and lawgiver, and yet the royal law binds him to be fit every day. A great shame it is, that any man should be dragged to a feast; for what a strange law would that seem, which should bind a hungry man to eat, or a sick man to take physic, or a dying man to taste of the water of life? look upon the Primitive Christians (whose practice hath been accounted the best interpreter of Scripture) and if thou canst not with them do it every day, yet let every fair opportunity set thy day. Christ's dead yet all quickening carcase is the same still, and we should be Eagles, as well as they, to fly to it. The Blood of Christ is the same, his death as full of virtue and efficacy; he is still a fountain of life to them who will taste him, nor was his most precious blood shed for the first Christians, and in tract and continuance of time dried up at last. At this fountain we may draw as well, and as oft as they, if our pitcher be as fit; and if we loved the cup of blessings, we should not fear how oft it came into our hands. But to speak truth, we have degenerated from that devotion, that love, that zeal, which inflamed their breasts, and retain nothing but the memory of their exceeding piety, which we look upon rather as a pious error, than a just and regular devotion; and because we are unfit, and therefore unwilling to do it, persuade ourselves, that superstition had an early birth, and did follow religion at the heels, to supplant it; that by this their busy, and too frequent remembrance of Christ, they did rather flatter than worship him, or at best, that they did that, which with more Christian prudence they might have left undone; For if it were devotion then, it could not be lost in the body and flux of time, which could have no such influence upon it, as to change it so, that it should become a sin in the last age, which was thought a duty in the first; since devotion is like Christ himself, yesterday and to day, and the same for ever. Devotion is still the same, but we are not the same, but have been bold with her name, and in that name have conjured up those evil spirits which blast the world, and breathe nothing but profaneness; have started questions, raised scruples, made new cases of conscience, which they, walking in the simplicity and integrity of their hearts never heard nor thought of, and so did do it and do it often with less art and noise, but with more piety, and with a zeal of a purer flame, and a heat more innocent; their devotion was to do it often, ours is to talk and magnify it, and to do it when we please. The duty itself of celebration how oft hath it been neglected, and set at derision in this latter age? what tragedies raised about a name? what comedies? what scoffs and jests upon the holy action? what gross and impious partiality in admitting men unto it? how have we distinguished and made a strange difference of one from another, and counted none fit, but of such a part, or such a faction? when were we not too far engaged in the world, and did not the world too far engage and bind us to such a side or faction, we could not but see, that the very being of a side or faction, the dividing ourselves from our brethren, for things no whit essential to Christianity, hath force enough, not only to drive us from this table, but to shut us out of heaven. For what should such uncharitable men do at a feast of love? what should such carnal men (the Apostle calls them so) feed on this spiritual food? I will not stand to confute these groundless and ridiculous, but dangerous and destructive fancies (for these men have more need of our tears and prayers, than our confutation) I had rather remove those hindrances and retardances, those pretences, and excuses, which men not well exercised in piety, use to frame and lay in their own way, and so fearing a fall and bruise at that, which no hand could set up against them but their own, make not their approaches so oft as they should to this holy table. For when we are to do a thing, one thing or other intervenes, and startles and troubles us, that we omit and do it not.  
And the first and great pretence is; our own weakness and unworthiness, which is the issue of our own will, begot in us by the sense of some habit of sin, which we have discovered reigning still in our mortal bodies; at the sight of which we start back, even from that which might help us, and cannot compose and qualify ourselves for the celebration; Before the action they are afraid, even afraid of the feast, afraid of life; at the table, they have a sad and cast down countenance drawn out more by a disquieted troubled mind, than that reverential joy which it shows forth in the outward man, when it is at rest, and we go away from it, with the same burden we brought to it, which we would and would not lay down; are weary, but seek not ease, but from those aversions which make it heavier than it was, and then we feel it again, and so are ever preparing and never prepared to come to this feast. For our preparation is our mortifying of our sinful lusts, which is not done, whilst any one sin hath this power and dominion in us: For how can he come to this fountain of life, who is unwilling to live? how can he partake of Christ's blood, who yet loves that sin, for the washing away of which Christ shed it? so that he sins if he come, and he sins if he come not; a miserable dilemma that sin drives him upon, that like the servant in the comedy, si faxit perit, si non faxit vapulat, if he do it, he eats his own damnation, and shall nevertheless be punished if he do it not.  
For not only acts, but omissions are evil; It is a sin to kill my father, and it is a sin not to help him: it is a sin to oppress, and it is a sin not to give an alms: It is a sin to resist a superior, and 'tis a sin not to honour him. It is a sin to contemn the sacrament, and 'tis a sin not to receive it; and the one leads to the other, neglect or indifferency to open profaneness; the sins of omission to sins of commission; he that doth not what he should, hath made a bridge for his lusts, which will soon carry him over to do what he should not. He that will not help his parents, will be drawn on by the least temptation to dishonour them; he that will not feed the poor, will be soon induced to grind their face; he that will not honour the king, when opportunity favours him, will pull him from his throne; he that neglects the sacrament, or is indifferent, within a while may be ready to take it away, as a thing of no use at all; sin consists as well in the negation, or non-performance of that we are bound to, as in the doing of some act; which is contrary to it, in which commonly it ends at last: nor is it then only, when the will is directly carried to the omission itself, when I will not do it, because I will not do it, which is high contempt; but when the will settles and rests upon that by which I am hindered from doing that which I am bound to do, and which I would willingly, and might easily do, but for this obstacle, which I myself set up against myself; but for that sin which is the issue of my lust, and which I had rather cleave to, then to the command of Christ; so that now I do not abstain from the Lords table upon necessity, but voluntarily, nor can I say, I would receive, when I thus say within myself, I will yet sin; for he that will not prepare himself, will not sit down at his table: but we may hear sometimes large expressions of sorrow from those who are so backward in this duty, and troubled they are, that they are such, but not fit for a Physician; that they are hungry, but have no stomach to that which should feed and nourish them; that they love the feast, but are not yet prepared to eat. I am sorry, is soon said, even by them, who yet take pleasure, reap profit and advantage from that sin which they bewail; who condemn it by these mournful and sad declarations of their mind, and yet give it the highest place in their heart: I am sorry, is too often a lie, but if it be not a lie, it is, and will be accepted as our preparation: for godly sorrow brings forth repentance not to be repent of, and every prenitent is a fit communicant: He that hath mingled his tears with his Saviour's blood, is a welcome guest at this table.  
What then is to be done in this case, when the conscience of some habit of sin keepeth us from coming? for certainly a great sin it must needs be, to make one sin an apology for another, to excuse a sin of omission, by a sin of commission, and when I will not do that whsch I should, to put in that plea, that I have done what I should not.  
This knot then like the Gordian knot must be cut asunder with the sword, with the sword of the spirit; This habit of sin must be shaken off, and we must use a violence upon ourselves, strive and labour with earnestness, and by practsing that which is contrary to it, to be less and less fettered and entangled every day: For to remain in it cannot be infirmity or weakness (for that name we give even to malice itself) but obstinacy, and a pleasing and wilful perseverance in sin. Why wilt thou not come? or rather, why wilt thou still sin? for what wert thou made a Christian? for what did the grace of God appear? for what did his most precious blood gush out of his sides, but to purge and cleanse thee from thy sin? why dost thou love thy disease? why dost thou favour thy flesh and corruption? why dost thou envenom and fester thy sore? why art thou such a Judas, first to betray thy Saviour, and then hang thyself? why dost thou still stand out and wilt not be cured? why dost thou prefer thy sin before the sacrament, thy husks, before the Bread of Life? why art thou sick, and wilt be sick, dying, and resolvest to die? thou wilt not come because thou hast sinned; break of thy sin and come: if thou condemnest thyself, why dost thou not forsake thyself? dost thou acknowledge what thou art, and yet continue what thou art? thou who wilt strike that man to the ground who stands in thy way to honour or wealth, hast not heart enough to destroy that sin, which thou sayest doth obstruct thy passage, and keep thee from this feast, from the table of the Lord, which was spread on purpose, that thou shouldst first demolish and remove thy sin, and then come and eat:  
This than is but a hindrance, a block of offence of our own hewing, an evil spirit which we invited to us, and we must cast it out. Tell me, canst thou believe? why, then thou mayst come; if this faith be strong enough to cast down those imaginations, which set themselves up against Christ, to work in thee holy cesires, and holy resolutions: and art thou now in an agony in this blessed contention with thyself? art thou serious in the resistance of this thy enemy? and dost thou gain some conquest over him every day? then thou mayst come, though thou art not yet made perfect.  
For we must remember (that the weaker Christian lie not down under his burden, not able to move towards the cup of Blessings, when it is reached forth unto him) we must remember, I say, that Faith and true sanctifying Grace have a wide latitude, that they are not so quick and active in one man as in another, and yet may save both. There be, who by continual watching over themselves, by continual struggling with themselves, by a vehement and incessant pressing forward, are well near come unto the mark, that have so confirmed themselves in the profession and exercise of Christian Religion, that they run their race with joy, and are scarce sensible of a tentation; who have made holiness so familiar to them, that no wile or enterprise of Satan can divorce them. In a word, who by that seed which is in them, keep themselves that he wicked one toucheth them not, as S. John speaks. These have no Oxen, nor Farms; 
1 Joh. 3.7. and 5.18.  These are not married to the world, and therefore they will come.  
Again, there be some who are but as it were Incipients in the school of Christ, and in their way, but labouring and panting forward, and are as it were in fieri, in the making, framing and composing themselves by that royal law which the Church of Christ holds forth unto them; who though they have for some time sucked the breasts of the Church, and received the sincere milk of the Word, yet are not yet grown thereby into perfect men in Christ Jesus, have not yet that strength to destroy the whole body of sin, but fall sometimes into this sin, sometimes into that; but those they fall into are not so many, nor so manifest, not so offensive and hurtful to others, not of that number or bulk, as to shut them out of the Church, or to exclude them from the communion of Saints. These have not yet attained, but they follow after; and though they have an eye toward the world, yet they come to Christ's Table with a firm resolution to pluck it out; and though their right hand offends them, yet they will cut it off, and with all their strength, and with all their soul shake off the yoke of sin, and take Christ's upon them, and even now are they hot and intentive on that work. These men, I say, may, nay aught to come, and here quicken their Faith, improve their Charity, strengthen and fix their Resolutions; and they who are so severe and overrigid as to drive them from it, do shut themselves out, though not from the table, yet from the feast, and are more unfit than they, because they want that charity which is required of a guest, even that charity which will not bruise the broken reed, nor quench the smoking flax. It was a pious wish of Moses Numb. 11. would God all the Lords people were Prophets; and it were as much piety to wish, and with his spirit, would all Christians were perfect, that every one were as Saint Paul, and knew nothing by himself. But we are in via, and as travellours on the way, one man makes more haste than another, walks with more ease and delight, slips not, falls not so often; another walks after, though not with the same speed and cheerfulness, because he meets with rubs and difficulties, which he every day contends with, and both at last by the guidance of the same spirit, and by the power of a compassionate Saviour, come to their journey's end; and he that goes before, and he that comes more faintly and slowly after, meet at last and sit down together in the same heaven. And now, in such variety of tempers, such diversity of temptations, amongst so many errors which some men quit themselves of with less, some with more trouble, we may applaud those who are near the top of perfection, but we must not despise those who are in their ascent, and labouring and striving forward after them; not quench the spirit in any man, though it burn not so brightly in some as it doth in others who are more fully enlightened; not shut them out as unclean beasts, because they discover something of the frailty of man; even such as these ('tis plain) Saint Paul admitted in this chapter, and he pleads for them Galat. vi.i. as for those who are to be restored with the spirit of meekness, and we cannot shut them out from his table or presence, whom Christ is so willing to meet, when being weary and heavy laden they come unto him.  
Nor doth this admitting weaker Christians open a door to let in wilful offenders, nor a gap to let in the goats to feed in the same green pastures with the sheep. These Beasts, if they come too near, will be thrust through with a dart: But then all sins are not of the same malignity, and we must put a difference between Judas' fall and Peter's. All sins do not strike us out of the covenant, and therefore do not drive us from Christ's table, where we are to renew and confirm it: there be some sins which are devoratoria salutis, and swallow up all hope of salvation, whilst they remain in us; there be peccata fortia, Amos 5.12. boisterous and mighty sins, which do urge the Justice of God, and even weary and conquer his clemency; there be others which weaker Christians through frailty fall into even in the state of grace, and which God will not be extreme to punish, though in Justice he might, but remains a Father still of those who seriously endeavour, yet sometimes times fail for his covenant sake which he made in his Son Jesus Christ, and of these sin's Saint John speaks 1 John 2.2. If we sinne, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous, and he is a propitiation four our sins. In a word, if all that sin were excluded, the feast were at an end; and if some that sin were not excluded, the table were no more a table, but an Altar for Thiefs and murderers to fly to.  
Fear then of infirmity is no excuse, but we should shake it off with our sin; it is an evil spirit of our own raising, and we must conjure it down: But there is another pretence, and it is drawn from a high conceit of the Sacrament, and an apprehension of an excessive and angelical kind of perfection, which some conceive is necessary to the due celebration of it; and so they are going towards it, but make no speed; are in action, but do nothing; are coming but never come, This may seem to be great humility, but as Bernard speaks, Ista Humilitas tollit humilitatem, this humility puts true humility from its office; for it is she alone that takes us by the hand, and leads us to this supper; Dicendo se indignum fecit se dignum, saith the same Father of the Centurion in the Gospel; if we can truly say we are unworthy, we make ourselves worthy, and thus we set forward towards it. But groundless scrupulosity, which many times is rather the issue of pride, than the daughter of humility, sees the way, and then sits down in it, and then makes every pebble a mountain, puzzles and perplexes us, sets us a framing and fashioning dangers to ourselves, and inconveniences, and summing them up, like the man in Lucian, who sat on the Sea shore numbering each wave as it came towards him, till at last the waves driving one another, beat on and wrought themselves over his head, and drowned him. In a word, it weakens and disenables us in the performance of our duty, and with it we are so good, that, as the Italian proverb is, we are good for nothing.  
This is but a scruple indeed, and it weighs no more, and the least breath is strong enough to blow it away. For upon the same inducement we must seal up our lips and never pray, we must stay at home and not go to Church; for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉; what mortal is fir for these things? how can dust and ashes speak to the majesty of heaven? what ear is purged enough to hear his word? whose feet are clean enough to tread his courts? And why do we pretend weakness or unworthiness? are we too weak, are we too unworthy to do his will? or can Christ command us that, which our unworthiness will make a sin for us to do? when the trumpet hath sounded, when the law is promulged, this fear must vanish: when our Saviour hath once spoken it, take, eat, this is my Body, shall we neglect to do it, and make this our plea, that we are not worthy to do it? when he would cleanse and purge us, shall we cry we are unworthy? unfit to do his will, but not unfit to break it? unfit to be redeemed, but not unfit to perish? unfit to empty ourselves of our pollution, but not unfit to settle on our lees? Oh 'tis ill thus to apologise, and dispute, and fret ourselves to destruction, to lie sick and bedrid in sin, and say we are unfit and unworthy to be healed: And what Reverence is that to Christ, which crucifies him again, and tramples his blood under our feet? for not to receive it, not to be purged and bettered by it, I am sure, is in the highest degree to dishonour it.  
I shall insist the longer upon this, for I see too many withdraw and put from them this favour and grace of God, and call it reverence, and might well blush at this their apology, if they did rightly consider what reverence is. Now reverence is nothing else but a kind of Justice paying back that which is due to a benefit, for some good it hath, or may bring unto us, and is either our overball or our real gratitude. Thou shalt reverence my Sanctuary, Levit. 19.30. for here we offer up ourselves to God, and God descends in blessings upon us. The word of the Lord is reverend, for it is the power of God unto salvation; therefore I esteemed all thy precepts, saith David Psal. 119.128. and holy and reverend is his name, for whatsoever good we do, we do in his name. And yet see, If we take not heed, if we keep not our feet, we may bow in his temple, and offer up the sacrifice of fools; we may greedily hearken what God will say, and yet despise his word; we may call upon his Name, do wonders in his Name, and yet blaspheme it; as the Jews bowed before Christ when they mocked him, and spit upon him, and smote him on the head. No: reverence is the payment, of a debt, and what is due to the Sanctuary? even that we should lift up holy hands; what do we owe unto his word? even obedience; and what reverence is due to the Sacrament? in Scripture we read of none in terminis, for there need no command to bind us to honour it; for who will not reverence that love which is breathed forth from Majesty? who doth not reverence the meanest gift that comes from the hands of a King? but what reverence is that that refuseth it? or is he reverend, who, when he is invited to a royal feast, will not come? what reverence is that that leaves Christ's body, as it were, hanging on the Cross, and his blood poured out on the ground, and will not stoop to take it up? If we look upon it well we shall find that excuse hath not a more ugly face in any defect, which it is brought in no countenance, then in this. For tell me, why should we not be afraid to hear the word? why have we such itching ears? why do we throng and press into his courts? is there not as great a preparation due unto that? is it so easy a matter to fling off all our unruly affections? are we so soon made fit to speak unto God, that he may hear; or to hear, when he doth speak; or may we as soon do it, as pull off our shoes from our feet, and make good the thing itself, as we can the representation? indeed we make it our apology, but it is foul ingratitute, and we cannot call it by a worse name, for it takes in all, our negligence, our lukewarmness, our imprudency, our carnality, our love of those evils which first trouble us, and then make us loathe our peace, first make us sick, and then afraid of the physician. This excuse, I I am sure, is not put up by those whom Christ bids departed into everlasting fire; for they do not say, we were unworthy to feed, or cloth, or visit thee, but we never saw thee hungry, or naked, or in prison: they did not think that Christ had been shut in prison with John the Baptist, or that he had begged in Lazarus. If heaven should open itself to receive thee, wouldst thou stay below with sin and misery, and cry, thou art unworthy to strive to enter it? behold here in the Sacrament, Paradise is, as it were, again laid open to thee, and no cherubin stands against thee, and shall this weak pretence of a wilful sinner be as a flaming sword to keep thee from the tree of life? say then to these pretences, as thou shouldest to Satan, who is the forget of them, avoid, get you behind me: for this is a command laid upon all Christians, and snpposes all able to receive it, and no man is infirm, or weak, or unworthy, but he that makes himself so; for his commandments are not grievous, saith Saint John, and amongst them all, there is not one less grievous than this. For is it not easier to do this, then to deny ourselves, to take up the Cross, to love our enemies, to lay down our lives for the brethren? and yet under this heavy obligation we lie. Whether we make it good or no, I know not, but whether it be done or not, no man, I think, did ever put up this pretence, that he was unworthy to do it; and shall we even offer ourselves to the hardest task, to the weightier matters of the Gospel, and startle and fly back and be afraid of the Sacrament? are we fit to receive his commands, which exact our goods, and our life, and shall there be a time when we shall be unfit to receive the pledges of his love? are we worthy to be Christians, and not worthy to be communicants?  
I do not here forbidden preparation, for 'tis that I urge and press, but unworthiness is the worst excuse, because we are bound to cast it off; and we cannot more dishonour the Sacrament, then by not receiving it. For from what root but from that of bitterness doth this evil weed, doth this baneful pretence spring us? Let us take an Inventory of all those things which occasion it, and we shall find them all to be such fruit of which we may well be ashamed; the best of them is our calling and necessary employments in the world; and is the world which passeth away of such value with us, that we will not leave it behind us, for a while to meet with Christ at his table? is our daily bread sweeter to us then the bread of Life? is mammon a greater God than God himself? but then the rest are of that nature that we should be afraid to think of them; lukewarmness in religion, love of our sins, unwillingness to part with them, or to be saved too soon, these are the rotten bones which lie under this painted Sepulchre and glorious pretence of great reverence to the Sacrament: Our farm, our ox, our wife, our vanity, our sin is preferred before Christ, and then we say we reverence him.  
But now, take this pretence of reverence with the best interpretation you can give it; suppose they that pretend it are not men devoted to the world, and vanity, but such as do try and examine themselves every day, and keep a careful watch over their hearts, (and yet it is scarce probable such men should pretend unworthiness; for these tares of excuses commonly grow upon the rocks, and barrenness, and not upon good ground) but suppose this high reverence they have of the Sacrament, may keep them off, and make them afraid to come near; yet as Saint Paul speaks in another case, 1 Cor. 4.7. This is utterly a fault in them, if not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 yet 'tis 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it is not so bad as profaneness, but a fault it is, and neglect too large for this excuse to palliate and cover.  
For 1. By this their abstaining they do either pity or condemn those that are more forward, as those that venture too far upon that formidable mystery, which they look upon at distance, and tremble, and dare not come near; as those that do not well consider what they do, and therefore are bold to do it; as men whom not conscience but presumption brings to the Altar. They will say perhaps, they pass no such censure on their brethren, they condemn them not; but yet they may, and speak not a word, condemn them by their actions, as Noah did condemn the world by his faith; for when in our behaviour we turn our back upon them, there is something of a sharp reprehension flies from us, like an arrow from a Parthians bow, after those who walk another way. And this utterly is a fault by my not eating to condemn them that eat: This is contristari fratres, this is to grieve our brethren, to make them think that mors in olla, that death is in the pot, danger in eating the Bread of life: this is to walk uncharitably, and for aught we know, to destroy him with our not eating, for whom Christ died.  
Or 2ly; Their refraining to come may keep others at the same distance, and it is not easy to determine utrùm pejor us, an pejori exemplo agatur, (as Cato speaks to another purpose in Livy) whether is more dangerous, their absence to themselves, or the example to others; For if Moses turn his back, who will not be afraid to come near to the mount? If men of more reserved conversation, who keep themselves unspotted of the world, tremble and dare not come nigh, how may many weak Christians, who hope here to receive their additional strength, be struck with terror, and so refuse to come? and think of these mysteries as the Germans in Tacitus did of those offices which they performed to their Goddess Hertha, the earth? The Goddess was washed, and they who ministered unto her were swallowed up in the same lake; Arcanus hinc terror, sanctaque 
Tacitus.  ignorantia, saith the Historian, quid sit illud quod tantùm perituri vident, Hence a secret terror, and holy ignorance possessed them, who wondered what that divine power should be, which none could see, but they who were to perish in the sight; for minister to it, was to die.  
I know we cannot give too much reverence unto it, we cannot give enough; but that servant doth but little honour his master, who will bow, and cringe, and kiss his hand, and keep at distance, and yet sleep in his service. Obedience and reverence are twins, they are borne, and grow up, and die together: I am not truly reverend till my obedience speaks and publisheth it, and if I obey not, my reverence is but a name, and it profiteth nothing; as Saint Paul spoke in another case, If be a breaker of the law, my Circumcision is made uncircumcision: If I do not come as Christ commands, I may call it reverence, but he will count it a great dishonour to his love.  
We complain much of the superstition of the Romish party, we are angry with their Altars, their vestments, their bowings, and cringes, and count it a kind of Theatrical Idolatry, and I think, without breach of Charity we may; for as they make it, it is one of the greatest Idols in the world; but we must take heed how we cry down superstition in others, whilst we suffer it to lie at our own doors; how we condemn it as a monster, as it walks abroad, when we hug and cherish it in our own breasts. 
Superst●tio error insanus est, amandos timet, quos colit violate. Quid enim interest utrum Deos neges, an infames? Sen. ep. 123.  For what is superstition but a groundless fear? what is it but a fear where no fear is, or if there be, a fear which we are bound to abolish? A fear to do our duty is something worse than superstition, and if we do not make the Sacrament an Idol, yet by this kind of lazy reverence, we make it nothing in this world, and as much as in us lies frustrate the grace of God, which in these outward elements is presented in a manner to the eye.  
I have dwelled the longer on this subject, because I see this duty so much neglected; some not fit to come, others not so much unfit, as unwilling; some so spiritual, or rather so carnal and profane, that they contemn it; some so careless, that they seldom think on't, but suffer their soul to run to ruin, not to be raissed and repaired till it be taken from them; some pleading their own infirmity, others the high dignity of these mysteries; the best of which pretences is a sin, which one would think we but a hard and uneasy pillow for a sick conscience to rest on. Not come, because I care not? not come, because I will not? not come because I dare not? not come? That utterly is a fault, and neglect doth aggrandise it; contempt doth make it yet greater; and infirmity, and conceit of our unworthiness is another fault, and our high esteem of the Ceremony cannot wipe it out, but it shows itself even through this reverence, and shows us guilty of the Body and blood of Christ, though we eat not this Bread, nor drink this cup; we pretend indeed we cannot, but the truth is, we will not come. Let us not then bring in our unworthiness as an excuse, for such an Apology is our doom which we pass against ourselves, which removes, and sets us a fare off from any relief of that mercy which should seal our pardon, because we say we need it not: we ought not to do, what we ought to do, and we are unworthy to do our duty, is brought in as an excuse, but it is our condemnation. Let us then do it, and let us do it often, and in the last place let us do it to that end for which he did first institute, and ordain it. Let us do it in remembrance of him.  
And now we may imagine that this is a thing soon done, a matter of quick dispatch; for as the Jews had Moses, so have we Christ read in our Churches every Sabbath day; he is the story, the discourse of the times, and we name him almost as often as we speak, and too often name him, but not with that reverence which we should; but thus to remember him may be a greater injury than forgetfulness, and better we never knew him, than thus to remember him. And therefore we must remember, that this remembrance consists not in a bare calling back into our mind every passage of his glorious Oeconomy, by bringing him from his cratch to his cross, and from his cross to his grave; for words of knowledge in scripture evermore imply the affections; when Joseph desired Pharaohs Butler to remember him, his meaning was he should procure his liberty: when Nehemiah prays to God to remember him in his last Chap. v. 22. he interprets himself, and pardon me according to the multitude of thy mercies: when the Thief on the Cross bespeaks Christ to remember him when he came into his kingdom, he then begged a kingdom. Indeed such a benefit deserves to be had in everlasting remembrance; for what is a jewel of a rich price in the hands of a fool, who hath no heart to receive and keep it? what were all the glory of the Stars, of the Sun and the Moon, which he hath ordained, if there were no eye to behold them? How can seed be quickened, if the womb of the earth receive it not? or what a pearl is the Gospel, if the heart be not the Cabinet? what is Christ, if he be not remembered?  
We must then, and upon this occasion especially, open the register of our soul, and enrol Christ there in deep and living characters; For the memory is a preserver of that which she receives: but than it is not enough for us to behold these glorious Phantasms, and carry them about with us as precious Antidotes, unless we bring them ab intestino memoriae ad os cogitationis, as Saint Aust. speaks, from the inward part of the memory to the mouth and stomach of the cogitative faculty, which is our spiritual rumination, 
August. count. Faust. Manich. l. 6. c. 7.  our chewing of the cud; unless we do Colloqui cum fide, hold a Colloquy within us, and Catechise our faith, and inquire whether we remember Christ as we should; whether our faith be as strong, our hop eas steadfast, our charity as fervent, as so great love requireth; whether it be such a faith, and such as hope, and so intensive a charity, as Christ and his love thus diffused abroad might beget; whether Christ be hung up in this gallery of our soul, only as a picture, or whether he be a Living Christ, and dwelleth in us of a truth: For the memory as it is the womb to form and fashion Christ, so it may yield good blood to nourish him, and in this sense, 
Plato solus in tanta gentium syluâ, in tanto sapientum prato, dearum & oblitus & recordatus est. Tertull. de anim. c. 24.  that of Plato may be true, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, we learn and are instructed by those notions, which were formerly imprinted in our Memory; we do conceive and are in travel, as Saint Paul speaks, with Christ; till he be fully form in us; we work him out in Cogitatoria, in the Elaboratory of our hearts. When we have him in our thoughts, and his precepts always before our eyes, as in a book which checks us at every turn, and by a frequent Contemplation of them draw our souls out of those encumbrances which many times involve and fetter them; when we recollect our mind into itself, and fasten it to this rock, where it may rest as upon a holy hill, from whence it may look down and behold every object in its proper shape; look upon an injury as a benefit, persecution as a blessing, and see life in the face and countenance of death, then and not till then we may be said to remember him. For can he remember a meek Christ, who will be angry without a cause? can he remember a poor Christ, that makes Mammon his God? can he remember the Prince of Peace, who is wholly bend to war? can he remember Christ, who is as ready to betray him as Judas, and nail him to the Cross as Pilate? Better he were quite razed out of our memory, then that we should thus set him there as a mark to be shot at; then to be thus set up, to be scorned, and reviled, and spit upon, and Crucified again; better never to have known him, then to know, and put him to shame. And therefore, if we will remember him, we must contemplate him in his own sphere, in that site and aspect which he looks upon us; deliberare, & causas expendere, well weigh and consider upon what terms and conditions we did first receive him, and entertain him in our thoughts and memories, and this will drive Christianity home, make it enter into the soul and spirit, fasten and rivet Christ into us, and make him a part of us; that his promises and precepts, and the virtue of his death and passion may be in our memory as vessels are in a well-ordered family, whence upon every occasion we may readily take them out for our use, find a defence against every temptation, a buckler for every dart, that so the love of Christ may swallow up all reluctancy in us, in victory. This gives us a true taste and relish of the sweetness of those blessings and benefits which we receive in the Sacrament. For the sweetness of honey, saith Basil, is not known so well by the Philosopher's discourse, as by the taste (which is a better and surer judge than the most subtle Naturalists) no more are the benefits of Christ and his Gospel, though uttered by the Tongue of men and Angels, in the words which convey them, as in a heart melted and transformed into the Love of Christ; then in the mind of man, when it is the same mind which is in Christ Jesus: there he is remembered indeed, there he is placed not as in the High Priests Hall, to be mocked, and derided, and blasphemed, but as in his throne, in his heaven, where he dispenseth his light, his joy, his glory, such glory as no Eloquence is equal to, no language can express, not Saint Paul himself, who was caught up into Paradise and tasted the sweetness of it, and then tells us no more than this, that they were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the words were unspeakable words, words which it was not possible for a man to utter; which was in effect, 
2 Cor. 12.4.  to tell us he did feel it, but could not tell us what it was: and thus to taste him is to remember him.  
And first, It takes in our faith, I do not mean a dead and unactive faith, for that leaves us dead and buried in a land of Oblivion, never looking upon Christ, or his benefits, nor gathering any strength or virtue from him, and no more considering this our High Priest, then if he had never offered himself, never satisfied, never been but a faith that worketh by love, a faith that follows Christ; through every Period, and stage, and passage of his blessed oeconomy; a faith that is a disciple, and follows him whithersoever he goes; looks upon him in time of prosperity, and  him in the days of affliction, forgets them, remembering him; in injuries, and forgives them; in death itself, and makes him our Resurrection, makes us one with him, that we cannot think, or speak, or move, that we cannot live, nor die without him.  
Now the time of receiving the Sacrament, of the receiving these pledges of his love, and these pignora fidei, these pledges of our faith, is the time of actuating, of quickening and increasing our faith, that it may be more apprehensive, more operative, more lively, that it may even spring in our hearts at the mention of Christ, at this representation of his body and blood, as the babe did in Elizabeth's womb at the Virgin Mary's salutation. For our Faith, as it may have its increasings and improvements, so it may have its decreasings and failings; may be weakened by the daily incursions which the world and the devil make upon it, by presenting objects of Terror to daunt and enfeeble it, objects of delight to slumber and charm it. It may be weakened by the daily avocations and common actions of our life, that we may not cleave so close unto Christ, not eye him with that intention, not love him with that fervour, not obey him with that cheerfulness which we should, but be in a disposition ready to fall off, and let go our hold of him. And therefore as we must at all times stir it up, and actuate it, so especially in our approaches to the Lords table, for in this doth our preparation to it, in this doth the benefit and power of the Sacrament principally consist: for here doth our Saviour, as it were, again present himself to us, opens him wounds, shows us his hand, and his side, speaks to us as he did to Thomas, reach hither your fingers and behold my hands; and reach hither your hands and thrust them into my sides; take, eat, this is my body, and be not faithless but believing; here shake off that chillness, that restiveness, that acedie, that weariness, that faintness of your faith; here warm, and actuate, and quicken it, that it may be a working, fight, conquering faith. For thus to do it is to do this in remembrance of him.  
Secondly, It takes in repentance, by which we do most truly remember Christ; remember his birth, and are born again, for repentance is our new birth; remember his Circumcision, and circumcise our hearts, for repentance is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the great circumcision, saith Epiphanius; go about with him doing good, for repentance is our obedience; remember him on his Cross, for repentance setteth up a Cross in imitation of his, and lifts us up upon it, stretcheth and dilates all the powers of our soul, peirceth our hearts, and so crucifies the flesh, and the affections and lusts thereof. Our repentance, if it be true, is an imitation of Christ's suffering, a revenge upon ourselves for what the Jews did to him; the proper issue and effect to his love; for what Christ worketh in us, he first works upon us, makes us see, and feel, and handle his love, that we may be active in those duties of love, which by his command and ensample we own to him, and in him to our brethren: He died to be a propitiation for our sins, that is, that he might make sin to cease, for so the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 implies; gives us strength by repentance quite to extinguish and abolish sin. Thus if we repent, thus if we do, we do it in remembrance of him. And this we are to do, but then especially when we prepare ourselves, and make our addresses to Christ's Table; for though repentance be the fruit of a due examination of ourselves, yet we may and must examine our repentance itself, and the time to do it is now, now thou art to renew thy Covenant, and so must also renew thy repentance. In the Feast of the Atonement the Lord tells his people, Leu. 23.27. you shall keep it, and he that doth not afflict his soul, shall be cut off, This is a day for it, and in this day thou must do it. This is the season to ransack thy soul, to see how many grains of hypocrisy were left behind in thy former repentance, what hollowness was in thy groans, what coldness in thy devotion; to see what advantage Satan hath since taken, what ground he hath won in thy soul; and then in remembrance of Christ's love set afresh to the work of mortification, wound thy heart deeper, lay on surer blows, empty thyself of thyself, of all that rust and rubbish which thy self-love left behind, and then stir up those graces in thee which through inadvertency and carelessness lie raked up as in the ashes; in a word, refine every virtue, quicken every grace, intent thy will, exalt thy faith, draw nearer to Christ, and so renew thy Covenant, and sit down at his Table and thus if thou do it, thou dost it in remembrance of him.  
I might here take in the whole train, the whole Circle and Crown of Christian graces and virtues, and draw them together and shut them within the compass of this one word remembrance, for it will comprehend them all; knowledge, obedience, love, sincerity, thankfulness, from whence the Sacrament hath its name, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, my last payment, and peace offering; for he that truly believes and reputes, as he is sick of sin, so is he sick of love, of that love, which in the Sacrament is sealed, and confirmed to us; is full of saving knowledge, is ever bowing to Christ's sceptre, is sincere and like himself in all his ways, will meditate of it day and night, will drive it ab animo in habitum, as Tertull. speaks, from the mind to the motions and actions of his body, from the conscience into the outward man, till it appear in liberal hands, in righteous lips, and in attentive ears; will breath forth nothing but devotion, but prayers and Hallelujahs, glory, honour, and praise for this his love; and so become as the picture, and image, and face of Christ, reflecting all his favours and graces back upon him; as a Pillar engraven with God's lovingkindnesses, a Memorial of God's goodness thankfully set up for ever; and thus to do it is to do it in remembrance of him.  
And to conclude; thus if we do it, if we thus remember him, he will also remember us, remember us, and set us as seals upon his heart, and signets on his right hand, remember us as his peculiar treasure; and as our remembrance of him takes up all the duty of a Christian, so doth his remembrance of us comprehend all the benefits of a Saviour; our love of him, and his love to us are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, will be as matter and fuel to nourish and uphold this remembrance between us for ever; 
Nazian or. 17.  we shall remember him in humility and obedience, and he shall remember us in love and power; we shall remember him on earth, and he shall remember us in heaven, and prepare a place for us; he shall remember our affliction, and uphold us; he shall remember our prayers, and make them effectual; our alms; and make them a pleasing sacrifice; he shall remember our failings, and settle and establish us; our tears, and turn them into joy; he shall remember all that we do or suffer, all but our sins, those he hath buried in his grave for ever. And now we are drawing near to his table with fear and reverence he will remember us, and draw nearer to us in these outward elements, than superstition can feign him; beyond the fiction of transubstantiation, and abundantly satisfy us with the fatness of his house; feed us, though not with his flesh, yet with himself; and move in us, that we may grow up in him. In a word, He will remember us in heaven more truly than we can remember him on earth, and distil his grace and blessings on us, be ever with us, and fill our hearts with rejoicing, which will be a fair pledge of that solid, pure, and everlasting joy in the Highest Heavens. And Lord remember us thus, now thou art in thy kingdom.   

 blazon or royal coat of arms of England and Wales HONI ●…T QVI MAL Y PENSE  
THE NINETEENTH SERMON.  
1 THES. 4.11. 
And that you study to be quiet, and to do your own business, and to work with your own hands, as we have commanded you.  
THe sum of religion & Christianity is to do the will of God; and this is the will of God, even our Sanctification, at the 3. v. of this chapter. This is the whole duty of man, and we may say of it, as the Father doth of the Lords prayer, quantum substringitur verbis, 
Tertull. de orat.  tantum diffunditur sensibus, though it be contracted, and comprised in a word, yet it pours forth itself in a Sea of matter and sense. For this holiness unto which God hath called us, is but one virtue, but of a large extent and compass; 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, but one virtue, but is divided into many, and stands as Queen in the midst of the circle and crown of all the graces, and claims an interest in them all; hath patience to wait on her, compassion to reach out her hand, longanimity to sustain, and this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, this placability of mind and contentation in our own portion and lot, to uphold her, and keep her in an equal poise and temper, ever like unto herself; that we may be holy in our faith, and holy in our conversation with men, without which though our faith could remove mountains, yet we were not holy. Tot ramos porrigit, tot venas diffundit, so rich is the substance of holiness, so many branches doth she reach forth, so many veins doth she spread into; and indeed, all those virtues which commend us to God, are as the branches and veins, and Holiness, the blood and juice to make them live. I do not intent to compare them one with the other, because all are necessary, and the neglect of any one doth frustrate all the rest; and the Wiseman hath forbid us to ask, Why this is better than that, for every one of them in his due time and place is necessary. It hath been the great mistake and fault of those who profess Christianity, to shrink up its veins, and lop off its branches, contenting themselves with a partial holiness: some have placed it in a sigh or sad look, and called it repentance; others in the tongue, and hand, and called it zeal; others in the heart, in a good intention, and called it piety; others have made it verbum adbreviatum, a short word indeed, and called it faith: few have been solicitous and careful to preserve it in integritate totâ & solidâ, solid and entire, but vaunt and boast themselves as great proficients in Holiness, and yet never study to be quiet; have little peace with others, yet are at peace with themselves; are very religious, and very profane; are very religious and very turbulent, have the tongues of Angels, but no hand at all to do their own business, and to work in their calling. And therefore we may observe, that the Apostle, in every Epistle almost, takes pains to give a full and exact enumeration of every duty of our lives, that the man of God may be perfect to every good work; teacheth us not only those domestic and immanent virtues (if I may so call them) which are advantageous to ourselves alone, as faith, and hope, and the like, which justify that person only in whom they dwell; but emanant, public, and omiliticall virtues of common conversation, which are for the edification and good of others, as patience, meekness, liberality, and love of quietness and peace: my faith saves none but myself; my hope cannot raise my brother from despair; yet my faith is holy, 
Judas 20.  saith Saint Judas, and my hope is a branch and vein of holiness, and issues from it. But my patience, my meekness, my bounty, my love and study of quietness and peace, sibi parciores, foris totae sunt, 
Ambros.  exercise their act and empty themselves on others; these link and unite men together in the bond of love in which they are one, and move together as one, build up one another's faith, cherish one another's hope, pardon one another's injuries, bear one another's burden, and so in this bond, in this mutual & reciprocal discharge of all the duties and offices of holiness, are carried together to the same place of rest. So that to holiness of life more is required then to believe, or hope, or pour forth our souls, or rather, our words before God; 'tis true this is the will of God, but we must go farther, even to perfection, and love the brethren, and study to be quiet; for this also is the will of God, and our Sanctification. What is a sigh, if my murmuring drown it? what is my devotion, if my impatience disturb it? what is my faith, if my malice make me worse than an infidel? what are my prayers, if the spirit of unquietness scatter them? will we indeed please God, and walk as we ought? we must then, as S. Peter exhorts, add to our faith virtue, to our virtue knowledge, to knowledge patience, to patience brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness, love, 
2 Pet. 1.5.6. v.  or as Saint Paul here commands, not only abstain from fornication, from those vices which the worst of men are ready to fling a stone at, but those gallant and heroic vices, which show themselves openly before the Sun and the people, who look favourably and friendly on them, and cry them up for zeal and religion, even from all animosity and turbulent behaviour; we must 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 we must study to be quiet, and be ambitious of it. Thus our Apostle bespeaks the Thessalonians, we beseech you brethren, that you increase more and more, and in the words of my text; that you study to be quiet, and do your own business, and work with your own hands, as we have commanded you.  
In which words, first a duty is proposed, study to be quiet. 2 . the means promoting this duty are prescribed, or causae producentes, and conservantes, the causes which bring it forward and hold it up, laid down; the first, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, to do our own business; the 2. to work with our own hands; the first shuts out 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, all pragmatical curiosity, and stretching beyond our line, and that compass wherein God hath bound and circumscribed us; the 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, all unactiveness and supine negligence in our own place and station. And the 3. and last makes it a necessary study, and brings it under a command; sicut praecepimus vobis, you must do it as I have commanded you.  
Or because to be quiet is here proposed as matter of study, we will consider, 1. the object, or thing itself in which our study must be seen; and it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a quiet and peaceable behaviour. 2. the act, which requires the intention of our mind, thoughtfulness, and a diligent luctation and contention with ourselves, we must make it our study, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, be ambitious of it. Thirdly, the method we must use; we must meddle with our own business, and work with our hands. And last of all, the warrant of this method, I have commanded it; and of these we shall speak in their order.  
Ut operam detis, that you study to be quiet etc.  
And first, to be quiet is nothing else but to be peaceable, to keep ourselves in an even and constant temper, to settle and compose our affections, that they carry us not in a violent and unwarranted motion, against those with whom we live, though they speak what we are unwilling to hear, and do what we would not behold; though their thoughts be not as our thoughts, nor their ways as our ways, though they be contrary to us; That there be (as S. Paul speaks) no schism in the body, 
1 Cor. 11.25.  but that the members may have the same care one of another; That we do not start out of the Orb wherein we are fixed, and then set it on fire, because we think it moves disorderly; but that we look on all with a charitable and Evangelicall eye; not pale because others are rich; not sick for our neighbour's vineyard; not sullen because others are cheerful; not angry because others are weak; not clouded with envy and malice, because others in some respects outshine us; but as S. Paul speaks, leading a quiet and peaceable life in all Godliness and Honesty; 
1 Tim. 2.2.  (for the Gospel of Christ hath left us no other eye but that of charity to look abroad with) that this peace of Christ may rule in our hearts, 
3 Coloss. 15.  to the which also we are called in one body; may rule in our hearts, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, sit as judge there, for so the word signifies, being in its native propriety spoken of the Judge in the Olympic games: Let peace rule in your hearts, let it have this office, let it be the only judge to set an end to all Controversies, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, to stand in the midst between two contrary sides, and draw them together, and make them one; to be a Mediator between the offence that is given, and the smart that is felt; to command our patience against the injury; to awake the one to conquer and annihilate the other, and so bury it in oblivion for ever.  
And that we may better understand it, we must sever it from that which is like it; for likeness is the mother of error, from whence it is, that there be so many lovers of peace, and so little of it in the world; that when ambition and covetousness harrass the earth, when there be wars and rumours of wars, when the kings of the earth rise up, when the people are as mad as the Sea when it rageth, when the world is on fire, yet there is not one that will be convinced, or persuade himself, that he ever raised one spark to kindle it. It was a just and grave complaint of Saint Hierom, non reddimus unicuique rei suum vocabulum, we are guilty of a dangerous misnomer, and do not give every thing its proper name; and think we study quietness when we are most bend to war, and ready to beat up the drum. Alii Dominationem pacem appellant, some call tyranny peace, and nothing else, and think there is no peace, unless every man understand and obey their beck; unless all hands subscribe to their unwarrantable demands; quiet they are and peaceable men, when like a tempest they drive down all before them; to him that tyrannizeth in the commonwealth, he is rebel that is not a parasite; and to him that Lords it in the Church, he that bows not to every decree of his, as if God himself had made it, is an heretic, a schismatic, an Anathema; then this peace, and not till then, when every look, and word, when every lie of theirs is a law. Others call even disobedience itself peace, and are never quiet, but with their quod volumus sanctum est; but when they are let lose to do what they please, are filii pacis the the children of peace, when they dig her bowels out, as the Donatists in Saint Aust. who were the greatest peace-breakers in the world, yet had nothing so much in their mouths as the sweet name of peace; and how is she wounded by those who stand up in her defence? we call that peace which hath nothing of it but the name, and that too but of our own giving; and esteem ourselves as quiet and peaceable men, when we are rather asleep then settled, rather senseless and dead then delighting ourselves in those actions, which are proper to us in that motion which tends to rest; rather still and silent then quiet, bound up as it were with a frost, till the next thaw, the next fair weather, and opportunity as fair, and then we spread abroad, and run out beyond our limit and bounds, nor can we be contained or kept in them. Again, others there be, such as Tacitus speaks of, who are solâ socordiâ innocentes, who are very quiet and still, and do little hurt, by reason of a dull and heavy disposition, and therefore saith Tully, do removere se à publicis negotiis, step aside and remove themselves out of the public ways; withdraw themselves out of the company and almost out of the number of men, who do no harm because they will do nothing, whose greatest happiness is nihil agere, nihil esse, 
Honestum pacis nomen segni otio imposuit. Tacit. de Turpiliano Annali. 14.  to do nothing and to be nothing; whose souls are as heavy and unactive, as those lumps of flesh, their bodies, and so raise no thoughts but such which lie level with their present condition, and reach not so high as to take in the public interest; who know not what to think, and so care not how unevenly or disorderly the course of things is carried along, so it be not long of them, being as much afraid of action, as others are weary and sick of rest; as unwilling to put forth a hand to support a shaking and falling commonwealth, as others are active and nimble to pull it down. Nay some there are of so tender and soft disposition, ut non possint in caput alterius nè testimonium dicere (as the orator observes in Senecas controversies) that they cannot be brought to bear witness to that truth which may endanger the life of any man; so heartless, that they cannot speak the truth, having so much of the woman, and the coward, that they know not how, but count it as a punishment to be just and honest men.  
May we not take these now for quiet and peaceable men? no: these are not quiet, for they never studied it; and the orator will tell us mores naturâ non constant, there is more required to the composing of our manners, and the raising and fixing this virtue in our mind, then that which the hand and impression of nature left in us; 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, saith Nazianzen, 
Nazianz. orat. 31.  for those imbred dispositions, those natural virtues do not reach home. Who thanks the sire for its heat, or the water for its moisture, the snow for being cold, or the sun that it doth shine? and may we not truly say of these low and tender dispositions, whom no disorder can affect, no violence move, that they are Lambs, that is, have as much quietness as nature instilled and put into them?  
Again, as there is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a natural quietness, so there may be also 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a constrained quietness, wrought in us by necessity; the quietness of Esau, which would last but till his father's funeral; the quietness of a Philistim under the yoke and harrow, I might say the quietness of Goliath when his head was off. And indeed, this forced quietness is like that of a dead man, of whom we may say, quiescit he is at rest and quiet, because he cannot move. Absalon and Achitophel, Theudas and Judas, Catiline and Cethegus, and all those turbulent boutefeaus which history hath delivered to the hatred and detestation of posterity, were as quiet before opportunity and hope set their spirits a working, as now they are in their urns or graves. Much quietness the world hath yielded in this kind, and many men who have been quiet against their will, who have stood still, because they were bound hand and foot, or as little able to break forth into action as those that are, whilst authority was too strong for them and held them in, they were as silent as the night; but when the reins were slacked, and the bit out of their mouths, as raging as the Sea, and as loud as the noise of many waters, (as Virgil describes his horse, stare loco nescit—) they could not be quiet, they could not stand still, and keep their place; or (as Job characters out his) they swallowed up the ground for rage and fierceness, they mocked at fear, and turned not back from the sword; like those wild horses which set the world on fire, and threw Phaeton out of the chair; when they were weak and low, upon their knees, tendering supplications, but when their strength increased, reaching forth their demands on the point of their sword.  
These Pageants the world shows every day, but this is not to be quiet in Saint Paul's sense; for nemo pius qui pietatem cavet, no man is good or quiet, who cannot or dare not for some danger that is near him and hangs over his head, be otherwise; 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, saith Basil, we commend those men, and call them good and quiet men, who are so by choice and election, and not by necessity. For as he is not a Jew who is one outwardly, so is not he a peaceable man who is so outwardly, and for a time, nor is that quietness which is outward in the flesh; but he is quiet who is so inwardly, and quietness is that of the heart, in the spirit, whose praise is not of men but of God; for if the love of peace be in the heart, the lips will be sealed, and the hands bound up for ever.  
So that, to be quiet consists in sweet composure of mind, in a calm and contented conversation, in a mind ever equal, and like unto itself; and he is a quiet and peaceable man, who is not moved when all things else are; stands upon his own basis, when all about him is out of frame; when the world passeth by him, and inverts its scene, and changes its fashion every day, now shining and anon lowering; now flattering, anon striking; now gliding by us in a smooth and delightful stream, and anon raising up its billows against us; in every change is still the same, the same when the sword hangs over him, and peace shadows him; the same when riches increase, and poverty comes towards him as an armed man; the same when religion flourisheth, and the commonwealth hath nothing praeter obsessum Jovem, & Camillos exules, but God dishonoured, and good men oppressed; the same when the world runs cross to his desires, as when he can say, So, So, thus would I have it; 〈◊〉 in rebus novis nihil novum, to whom nothing comes as new and unexpected; who stands as a rock, and keeps his own place, and station; not swelling at an error, not angry with contempt, not secure in peace, not afraid of persecution, not shaken with fear, not giddied with suspicion, not bowed down with covetousness, nor lifted above himself with pride; who walks and is carried on in every motion by the same rule in cujus decretis nulla litura, whose decrees and resolutions admit no blot, who doth not blot out this day's quietness with to morrow's turbulence (as Aristides spoke of Pericles) who is not unquiet or troubled for any rub, or interposition, 
Aristides in Photii. Bibl.  for any affront in his way, but keeps himself in an even and constant course, as constant in his actions as his knowledge; as if you should ask him a question of numbers, he will give you the same answer to day which he did yesterday, or to morrow which he did to day, and many years before; who by his patience possesseth his soul, and will not yield or surrender it up to any temptation or provocation whatsoever, there to be swallowed up and lost; whom another man's evil doth not make evil, another man's riches do not make pale, another man's honour doth not degrade from himself, whom another man's noise doth not disquiet, another man's riot doth not discompose, another man's fury doth not distract, another man's schism doth not divide from the Church: in a word, who changeth not colour with the world, nor is altered with that confused variety, and contradiction of so many humours of so many men, and applies himself to every one of them as a Physician to supple and cure, and not to enrage them, this man is quiet, hath gained this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 this quietness of mind, this man cannot but be at peace with himself, and all the world.  
And to this, Christianity, and the religion which we profess doth bind us; this is a plant which our heavenly Father alone doth plant in our hearts; in which when it is planted, it will shoot forth and grow up, and raise itself far above the love of the world, above covetousness, and envy, and malice, and fraud, which first disquiet and rack that breast in which they are, and then breath forth that venom which blasts the world, and troubles and provokes those which are near us; sometimes gnashing the teeth, which eats and consumes us; sometimes breathing forth hailstones and coals of fire which fly back in our faces and destroy us; sometimes laying of snares in which ourselves are caught, for envy is the rottenness of the bones, saith Solomon, and anger killeth the foolish; and the Bread of deceit though it be sweet at first, yet it shall fill the mouth with gravel: nemo non in seipsum priùs peccat, saith Austin, no man disturbs the peace of another, but he breaks his own first; no man repines at his brother's good, but he makes it his own evil, and his vice is his executioner; no man breathes forth malice, but it echoes back upon him; no man goes beyond his brother, but hath outstripped himself, and the Psalmist tells us that evil shall bunt the violent man to destruction. But when this plant, this peace is deeply rooted in us, it spreads its branches abroad over all, over all cross events, over all injuries, over all errors and miscarriages, over envy, malice, deceit, and violence, and shadows them, that they are not seen, or not seen in that horror which may shake it; spreads itself over the poor, and relieves them; over the malicious, and melts him; over the injurious man, and forgives him; over the violent man, and overcomes him by standing the shock; keeps itself to its root, is fixed and fastened there: and when this wind blows, when this rain falls, when all these beat upon it, when the tempest is loudest, is ever the same, is peace still. And this is the work of the Gospel, the sum of all, the end of all that it teacheth, to work this quietness and peace in us that we may raise it up in others, that this peace may beget and propagate itself in those who are enemies to it, that the kid may feed with the wolf, and the Lamb with the Leopard, so long as the moon endureth; that there may be no deceit, no envy, no violence, no invasion, no going out, no complaining in our streets. This is the Evangelicall virtue, this is peculiar and proper to the Gospel and Christian religion, proper in the highest and strictest degree of propriety, every good Christian is a peaceable man, and every peaceable man is a good Christian. Look into your prisons, saith Tertullian, to persecuting heathens, 
Tert. Apol.  and you shall find no Christians there, and if you do, it is not for murder, or theft, or cozenage, or breach of the peace; the cause for which they are bound and confined there, is only this, that they are Christians. This is that height of Perfection, which the vanity of Philosophy, and the weakness and unprofitableness of the law could not reach; nor could the Jews bring any thing ex horreis suis out of his granary, his store or basket, or the philosopher è narthecio suo, out of his box of ointments, out of his book of prescripts, which could supple a soul to this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, this tranquillity and quietness, which might purge and sublime, and lift it up above the world, and all the flattery and terror that is in it; humane reason was too weak to discover the benefit, the pleasure, the glory of it; nor was it seen in its full beauty, till that light came into the world, which did improve, and exalt, and perfect our reason; the Philosophers cried down anger, yet gave way to revenge; laid an imputation upon the one, yet gave line and liberty to the other; both Tully and Aristotle approve it, as an act of Justice. The language of the law was, an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth. It was said to them of old, you shall love your neighbour, 
Math. 6.  and hate your enemy; but the return of the Gospel is a blessing for a curse, love for hatred, a prayer for persecution; whatsoever the Law required, that doth the Gospel require, and much more; an humility more bending, a patience more constant, a meekness more suffering, a quietness more settled, because those heavenly promises (which the Philosopher never heard of) were more, and more clearly proposed in the Gospel then under the Law; for is not eternity of bliss a stronger motive, than the basket, or glory, or temporal enjoyments? is not heaven more attractive than the earth? under the Law this peace and quietness was but a promise, a blessing in expectation, and in the Schools of Philosophers it was but a fancy, the peace and quietness they had was raised out of weak and failing principles, de industria consultae aequanimitatis, non de Fiducia compertae veritatis, saith Tertullian, 
Tertull. de Animax. 1.  out of an industrious affected endurance of every evil, that it might not be worse, out of a politic resolution to defeat the evil of its smart, but not out of conscience, or assurance of that truth, which brought light, and immortality to settle the mind, to collect and gather it within itself, in the midst of all those provocations and allurements, which might show themselves to divide and distract it, but remain itself untouched, unmoved, looking forward through all these vanishing shadows and apparitions, which either smile or threaten, to that glory which cannot be done away. This Christianity only can effect; this was the business of the prince of peace, who came into the world, but not with drum and colours, but with a rattle rather; not with noise, 
Tertull. count. Judaeus.  but like rain into the mown grass; not destroying his enemies, but making them his friends; not as a Caesar, or Alexander, but as an Angel, and Ambassador of peace; not denouncing war, but proclaiming a Jubilee; and with no sword, but that of the spirit, who made good that prophecy of the Prophet Micah, that swords should be turned into ploughshares, and spears into pruning hooks; 
Micah. 4.3.  that all the bitterness and malice of the heart should be turned into the love and study of modesty and peace; that every man should sit under his own vine and under his own figtree, and gather his own fruit, and not reach out his hand into another man's vineyard, not offer violence, nor fear it, nor disturb his brother's peace, nor be jealous of his own; not trouble others, nor be afraid himself; that the earth might be a temporal paradise, a type & representation of that which is eternal. For this he came into the world, and brought power enough with him to perform it, and put this power into our hands, that we may make it good; and when he hath drawn out the method of it, when he hath taught us the art to do it, when there is nothing wanting but our will, the prophecy is fulfiled, for it was never yet foretold by any Prophet, that they should be quiet, who made it their delight, their study, the business of their whole life to trouble themselves and others. What could he in wisdom have done more than he hath done? he hath digged up dissension at the very root, malè velle, malè dicere, malè cogitare ex aequo vetamur, saith Tertullian, to wish evil, to speak evil, to think evil are alike forbidden in the Gospel, which restrains the will, binds the hand, bridles the tongue, fetters the very thoughts, commands us to love an enemy, to surrender our coat to him, who hath stripped us of our cloak, to return a blessing for a reproach, and to anoint his head with oil, who hath struck us to the ground; which punishes not the ends only, but the beginnings of dissension; which brings every part to its own place, the flesh under the spirit; the will under the law of charity, which is the peace of the soul, the obedience of faith under the eternal law, which is our peace with God; which draws with it the servant under the master, the child under the parent, the subject under the magistrate; which is the peace of an house, of a commonwealth, the peace of the world, which makes every part dwell together in unity, begets a parity in disparity, raises equality out of inequality, which keeps every wheel in its due motion, every man in his right place, is that intelligence which moveth the lesser sphere of a family, and the greater orb of a commonwealth composedly and orderly, which is its peace, for peace and quiet is the order and harmony of things; the Father calls it a Harp, and it is never well set or tuned but by an Evangelicall hand, which slacketh and letteth down the string of our self-love, to an hatred of ourselves, and windeth up the string of our love to our brother in an equal proportion to the love of ourselves; we must hate our life in this world, John 12.15. and we must love our brother as ourselves, Matth. 22.39. nay it lets it lower yet, even to our enemies, and the sound of it must reach unto them, and talk what we will of peace, if it be not tuned and touched by charity, if it take not its rise and spring from this peace here, from the peace of the Gospel, it will be but a dreadful sound, as Job speaketh, 15.21. either in the soul, or in a family, or in the Church, or in the Commonwealth.  
This is the nature, the power, the virtue of the Christian Law; this it doth even when it is not done, for if the Gospel might take place, it would most certainly be done; that there is so much heat, so much distraction, so much bitterness amongst Christians, that one kingdom riseth against another, and almost every kingdom is divided in itself, that the Church is mouldered out into schisms, and parceled out into conventicles, that every man almost is become a Church unto himself by a wilful separation from the whole, that Christians, whose mark and badge is was, by which they were known and distinguished from all the world, that they did love one another, that they would die for one another, should hate one another, revile one another, proscribe one another, Anathematise one another, and kill one another, and do that bloody office sooner than a Turk or Jew; that Christendom should thus be made a stage of war, and a field of blood, is not from the Gospel or Christian religion; no, these winds blow not out of this Treasury, but rather out of the pit of hell, from the swell of pride, which Christianity beats down; from the love of the world, which Christianity conquers; from desire of supremacy, which Christ anity stifles; from envy, whose evil eye Religion puts out; from an hollow, deceitful heart, which Christianity breaks; from those evils which are the only enemies, which the Prince of peace, the author and finisher of the Gospel came to fight against and destroy. Look back upon the first Christians, who had rather suffer the greatest wrong than do the least; who when for their multitude they might have trod their enemies under their feet, yet yielded themselves to their fury and rage; who did so outnumber them, that only to have withdrawn themselves, had been to have left their persecutors in banishment, to wonder and lament their own paucity and solitude, and yet bowed down their necks to their yoke, and delivered up their lives to their cruelty, and more willing to rest in their graves, then be unquiet; and in them this prophecy was fulfilled, their swords were indeed turned into mattocks, and their spears into pruning hooks, for all the weapons they had were their Innocency and Patience. And thus it was for well-near four hundred years together; but look forward and then see blackness and darkness, noise and tempests, even in the habitations of peace, Christians reviling and libelling one another, as in the Council of Nice; Christians killing and treading one another under foot, as in the Council of Ephesus; Christians killing one another, as in the quarrel or schism of Damasus and Ursicinus; and then let your eye pass on through all the ages of the Church, and if it can for dropping, look upon this last, and you will see that which will be as a thorn in your eye, and hear that which will make your ears tingle; see blood and war, tragedies, and massacres, tumult, & confusion, Christian's defranding, cursing, tormenting robbing one another; you should see— but the time would fail me to tell you, what you should see; but you would think that Christendom were a wilderness, not a place where the Leopard did lie down with the kid, or the wolf feed with the Lamb, but where the kid was turned into a Leopard, and the Lamb into the wolf; you will think that either this prophecy was false, or that Christ the Prince of peace was not yet come in the flesh. But as our Saviour said to his Disciples, when they were affrighted, and supposed him to be a Spirit, why are you troubled? 
Luk. 24.37.38.  for if you be troubled you mistake Christ's, and think him to be what he is not; For for all these dismal and horrid events, so contrary, so unproportioned to the promise of God, Christ is come in the flesh, and the prophecy is fulfilled; for all Christians are peaceable men; and whosoever is obedient to the Gospel, doth feel and can demonstrate this power in himself: what though we see violence and strife in the Church? yet the Church is the house of peace; what though Appius be unchaste? we cannot libel the Decemvirate; what though Judas be a Son of perdition? 'twas the traitor, not the Apostle which betrayed Christ: If there be controversies, Religion doth not raise them; if there be schisms, Religion doth not make them; if there be war, Religion doth not beat up the drum; if there be busybodies, Religion doth not employ them; if there be incendiaries, Religion did not enrage them; if there be a fire in the Church, the Christian did not kindle it, but the Ambitious man, the mammonist, the Beast that calls himself by that name; for Religion cannot do that which she forbids, cannot do that on earth, which damns to hell; cannot forward that design, which is against her; cannot set up that which will pull her down; in brief, Religion, Christian Religion cannot but settle us and make us quiet and peaceable; cannot but be itself; for that which unsettles us, and makes us grievous to ourselves and others, is not Christian Religion. For Religion is the greatest preserver of peace, that ever was, or that Wisdom itself could find out, and hath laid a fouler blemish on discord and dissension, than Philosophy ever did when she was most rigid and severe; she commands us to pray for peace, 1 Tim. 2.2. she enjoins us to follow peace with all men, Heb. 12.14. she enjoins us to lose our right for our peace, Mat. 5. motus aliena naturae pace nostrâ cohibere, as Hilary speaks, to place a peaceable disposition as a bank or bulwark against the violence of another's rage, by doing nothing to conquer him who is in arms; to charm the hissing Adder, with silence; it levels the hills, and raiseth the valleys, and casts an aspect upon all conditions of men, all qualities, all affections whatsoever, that they may be settled, compact, and at unity with themselves and others. This was Christ's first gifts, when he was born, and it was conveyed unto us in an Hallelujah; Luk. 2. peace on earth, and this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, as Basil calls it, his last gift, when he was to die, John 14.27. Peace I leave with you, and so conclude, this is it which Saint Paul here commends to us as a lesson to be learned of us, the word is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, we must labour and study to be quiet.  
There is nothing in the world which deserves true commendation but must be wrought out with study and difficulty; nor is the love of peace and quietness, obvia & illaborata virtus, an obvious and easy virtue, which will grow up of itself. Indeed, good inclinations and dispositions may seem to grow up in some men, as the grass and the flowers of the field, and to be as naturally in them as the evil; for man that is born to action brought with him into the world those practic principles, which may direct him in his course; there is saith Basil, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, one part of piety which we never learned, but brought with us, as an impression made in us by the hand of Nature itself. And these natural and inbred dispositions do not always grow up as we do in stature, but show themselves, and soon disappear, like the embryo or child in the womb, they live and die, and never see the sun; they bud and blossom in us, and bear this glory with them for a while, but when they should ripen and be that fruit which we hope to see and look on with delight, either through our neglect, or the malignant aspect of ill example, they are nipped, and withered, and lost, and there grow up worse in their place, so unlike to their first show, and those hopes which we conceived, that we upbraid the end with the beginning, the harvest with the spring, and wonder how that which in its putting forth was a flower, should in its growth and culmination become a thistle; how that which was a Lamb in the morning, should be a fox or Lion before its evening; how these good dispositions, like a fair temple which is in raising, should sink and fall and be buried in the rubbish. But these dispositions and good inclinations we look upon as upon promises, which may be kept or broke; nor can we commend them farther than by our hopes, which are sometimes answered, but too oft deluded, nor can we call them virtues, because they are not voluntary. That which is truly praiseworthy, and must fit us for Eternity, will not shoot forth of itself, 
Deorum virtus naturâ excellit, hominum autem industriâ. Cicer. Top.  nor grow and flourish in its full beauty, till the soul and mind of Man be well cultivated, be dressed, manured and watered; is a work of time, and must be wrought out in us, by us, even against ourselves, against the reluctancies of the flesh, against all solicitations, and provocations which will beround us, and compass us in on every side; for else we shall not be long quiet, but uncertain and desultorious, leap out of one humour into another, like those whom we must study and deprehend, and so meet and apply ourselves unto them in every mode and disposition, or else they will vent and break forth, and trouble us, whom we cannot make our friends, unless we make ourselves their parasites. We are not what we should be, till we labour and study to be so; when we shake off our mist, and shine, than our light is glorious; when we are flesh, and make ourselves spiritual, than we are active; when we quit ourselves of that leaden weight of our corrupt nature, as Nazianzen calls it, 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Naz. or 31.  and are carried up by our reason above all that may disquiet us, or work us out of ourselves to the molestation of others, than we are quiet; then we are a fit spectacle for God, for Angels, and men to look upon and delight in; we read indeed of infused habits, and the Schools have furnished us with many such conclusions; but have not given us those premises which may enforce them; which they could not do, because neither reason nor revelation will afford them: but if they be infused, as they are infused into us, so they are not infused without us, they are poured not like water into a Cistern, but into living vessels fitted and prepared for them; for if they were infused without us, I cannot see how they should be lost; if wisdom were thus infused into us, we could never err; if righteousness were thus infused, the will would ever look upon that wisdom, and never swerve, nor decline from it; if Sanctity were thus settled on the Affections, they could never rebel. The understanding could never err, for this wisdom would ever enlighten it; the will could not be irregular, for this righteousness would ever bridle it; the affections could not distract us, for they would ever be under command; for as they were given without us, so bringing with them an irresistible and uncontroublable force, they would work without us, and we might sit still upon our bottoms, and fill ourselves with vanity, in expectation of such an infusion, of such a dew which would fall into us whether we will or no; and so virtue would be an Ancile, as a buckler sent down from heaven which we never set a hand to, and we shall be worse and worse upon this account, that we shall better, and look upon grace as Caligula did upon the moon, 
Suet. Caligula.  when she was full and bright, and wonder she doth not fall down out of her orb, and hasten to our embraces, and so we may be deceived, as he was, and it may never come. No, 'tis most true, grace is sufficient for us, and 'tis as true, grace is not sufficient for us, unless we cherish it; quietness is the gift of God, but it is a conditional gift, which exacts something from him who must receive it: if we will be quiet, we must study to be so, that is, earnestly and unfeignedly desire it, and the earnest desire of any practical virtue, is the study of it; when the heart is prepared, the will made conformable, then are we perfect Scholars in this art of conversation.  
And to this end we must, first, make it our meditation day and night, and fill our minds with it, and this is like the cunning of a part which we are to act, and will make us ready to perform it with a grace and decorum, and so receive a plaudite, 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Arist. Rhet. 3. x.  an Euge from him who is our peace. For Meditation is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, is a kind of augmentation and enlargement of the object we look upon, and by our continual survey of the beauty of it, by fixing our thoughts upon it, and by renewing that heat and fervour in us, by thinking of it, and an assiduous reviving and strengthening those thoughts, we make it more visible, more clear, more appliable than before; make that, which written, is but a dead letter; or spoken, but a sound; as the voice of God himself, of force and energy to quicken and enliven us. It is like to those Prospectives which this later Age hath found out, by which we discover Stars which were never seen, and in the brightest of them find spots which were never discerned; We see the glory of tranquillity, and the good it brings to ourselves and others; what a heaven there is in love and peace, and what a hell and confusion in Anger, and debate; We find out the plague of our hearts, the Leprosy of our souls, which before appeared as a spot, as nothing, and this help we have by Meditation. For though it be most seen, as the Pilots skill is, cùm stridunt funes, & gemunt gubernacula, in a rough and well-wrought Sea, in times of trouble and distraction; yet our study and desire of it wants no opportunity of time or place, & inter medios rerum actus invenit aliquid vacui, in the midst of our business and employments finds leisure, and makes its closet in the very streets. Every day, every hour of our life we may contemplate it, and prepare ourselves to be at peace with all men. That when the tempest doth arise, which may disquiet us and throw us from our station, we may be ready and able, if not to be calm and slumber it, yet to becalm ourselves, and stand as quiet and upright as if no wind did blow. As the young man in Xenophon did 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 exercise his limbs and fingers at home, and framed them to that gesture, and elegancy of motion, which might win the favour and commendations of those who beheld him abroad; so may we enter into our closet and be still; tell ourselves what a blessing it is to be ourselves, what a divine thing it is not to be moved; how like to God we are, when we see distasteful objects and are not changed; how meritorious and heroic a thing it is, to save ourselves in the midst of a froward generation; thus prepare and fix our hearts, think that God may lay us as he did Job in the dunghill, and resolve to be patiented; that I may live amongst perverse and froward men, and be ready to addulce and sweeten them; amongst those whose teeth are arrows, and hold up our buckler; that the heathen may rage's, and tumultuously assemble, and comfort ourselves, that God shall have them in derision; that we may live in the midst of the enemies of peace, and provide to keep it; suppose that such a Lion as Nero, or some worse beast should roar amongst us, common with ourselves, and be still, and fly to no other Sanctuary than our tears and our prayers.  
And therefore in the next place, we must not only meditate and contemplate it, but upon all occasions put it in practice; for meditation may be but the motion and circulation of the fancy; the business, or rather the idleness of such men who send their thoughts abroad, as boys throw smooth stones upon the surface of the water, which are lost in the making; which look and gaze on virtue, and then fly aloft in the contemplation of it, but like those birds of prey which first tower in the Air, and then stoop at carrion. We must therefore second our meditation, and ratify, and make it good by practice, faciendo discere, con it more perfectly by being not moved at the incursion of any evil; learn to pass by a petty injury, that we be not cast down with a greater; not to be envious against evil doers, that we may be less troubled at what they do; not to repine at the prosperity of evil men, that we may not be too far exalted with our own, by accustoming ourselves to the suffering of this or that evil, proceed and grow up to that composedness, that we may endure all; to learn with a foil, that we may fight with a sword, as Demosthenes used to repeat his Orations on the beach, that having stood the roaring of the Sea, he might be the less troubled at the noise and insolency of the people in the Pleading-place.  
And this study is no easy study, for dedocendi priùs quàm docendi, we must unlearne many things, before we can be taught this; we must abandon our former principles, out of which we drew so many dangerous conclusions, before we can make any progress in this divine science; we must pull down our former desires, before we can raise up new. In a word, we must empty ourselves before we can be quiet.  
And first we must cast out self-love, I mean, we must not love ourselves so irregularly, so ridiculously, so perniciously, so mortally as we do; for there is no adamant, no millstone more unyielding to the stroke of the hammer, than the heart of man when once it is possessed with the love of itself: then every thing that flies, crosses us, troubles us; every apparition is a monster; every man is our enemy, every look is a threat, every word is a sword, every whisper is thunder; he that thus loves himself cannot long be quiet with any man. Our blessed Apostle where he tells us that in those perilous times which were to come, 
2 Tim. 3.  there should be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, lovers of themselves, that is, blind to themselves, ignorant of themselves; he brings in a train after them, an Iliad of many evils that should follow, whilst self-love led in the Front. First lovers of themselves, and then Covetous, Boasters, proud, disobedient to Parents, Traitors, Heady minded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; and such men can never be quiet.  
2ly. We must root out that root of all evil, Covetousness, which will never suffer us to be quiet; is ever busy abroad seeking to add house to house, and land to land, to draw all unto itself; nam & avaritia amat unitatem, saith Aust. For even covetousness is a lover of unity; and commands, and drives us from place to place, even through the world, till it collect all into one, and make it its own: and to this end we must confine our desires, and begin not to stand in need of Fortune; for if we let them run out, they will be ever running, and never at an end, and throw down whatsoever is against them; for what our desires are let out, and upon the wing, we speak to every man which stands between us and the object they fly to, as Joab did to Asahel, 2 Sam. 2. Turn thee aside or we will smite thee to the Ground. This fills the hills with Robbers, the Sea with pirates, the Commonwealth with thiefs, and cheats, and oppressors; this raiseth sedition, tumults, wars. Aurato Capitolio bella gessimus, 
Sen: Controu.  saith the Orator, whilst Rome was poor, peace was within her walls, but when the Capitol was gilded, rich and glorious, than war broke in. The Gods and Religion might be the pretence, but Covetousness and Ambition beat up the drum.  
And therefore we must in the next place pull back our Ambitition, which is a busy, troublesome, and vexatious evil; carrying us over our brother's necks to that pitch, from whence we commonly fall and break our own, never quiet till then.  
And then we shall the more easily bind our malice which is ever lurking and prying for the prey; and bridle our anger, which will never suffer us to be at quiet in ourselves or with others, but will drive us from ourselves, and put us in the posture and motion of madmen, make us run out of our own house to burn our neighbours, and afflict ourselves to trouble others. And last of all, empty ourselves of all suspicion and evil surmizing, of all discontent, which never want fuel to foment them; which feed on shadows, on whispers, on lies, empty reports, and draw conclusious out of any, out of no premises at all; which call small benefits injuries, and every frown a persecution; which level us in our best estate, impoverish us in riches, raise a tempest in a calm, and strike us on the ground, when no evil breatheth in our coasts; which have a miraculous power to turn a rod into a serpent, a creating power to work not good out of evil, but evil out of nothing; are quick and apprehensive, strike at every guat, and make it a Camel to choke us; in brief, which are that worm which gnaws us continually, which kindle a hell on earth, torment us in pleasure, bruise us on profit, bind us in liberty, lay us on our bed, fright us with visions and dreams, and fearful apparitions, which turns a seraglio into a prison, a talon into a mite, and a mite into nothing; and whatsoever comes near into a punishment, which is worse than nothing. These are the evil spirits which torment and tear us, and strike us to the ground, and make us wallow and foam, and when we have dispossessed ourselves of these, we shall sit quietly, and in our right minds; or if we move, we shall move in our own sphere and compass, which is a motion in our place, and such a motion is rest.  
This is our spiritual exercise, and this we must study; this is the labour and work of our faith, and we must practise it every day; and when we have practised it, practice it again, repeat our lesson over and over, and be jealous of ourselves, that we are not yet perfect; as Petrarch counsels students, Sic philosophari ut philosophiam amemus, so study to be quiet, that we may love it, love it as that, which will purchase us the love of the God of Peace.  
And if we take the proper signification of the word here, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, our love must be of that nature, that we must love it as that which will crown us with glory, we must be ambitious of it. And how do ambitious men stretch, and rack their wits? how do they study to attain first one degree of honour, than another, and then the top of all, and then study again to be higher than the highest? for ambition though it do begin with the end, yet it is always a beginning, and this is proper to it, that it never looks back, or considers how high it hath soared; it gins at one kingdom, and then gins at another, and though it make way ad cubile solis, to the end of the world, yet it doth but begin there. Thus should we be ambitious of quietness of a settled mind and a peaceable behaviour, which no man's height can sink, no man's greatness can diminish, no man's anger can move, nomans' malice can shake, no man's violence can disorder; as others are of honour, which they must win with fire and sword, 
Naz. or. 18.  and so make up Nazianzens' number, who tells us there be three things which cannot be overcome or disquieted, God, and an Angel, and a good Christian; for God is not troubled when he is angry; though for our sakes he tells us he is, even pressed as a Cart under sheaves, and 'tis our sin not wrath that whets the sword of the destroying angel; and shall we not be ambitious to make up the third? to be like unto our heavenly Father, to be like unto the Angels in this? to be quiet, and keep the same temper and evenness in the midst of so many humours as men; to be the same, when others run several ways, and all to trouble us; to be humble, when one scorns us; to be meek, when another rageth; to be silent, when this man doth rail; not to be transported with what others do, but to stay at home with ourselves, and be still; when the world is out of order, not to pull it to pieces in seeking to settle it; not to enrage a fire by attempting to quench it; to establish this order, this peace, this heaven within ourselves, and as much as in us lies, keep it with all men. This is truly Religion, not to hear, and talk, and fill the world with noise and confusion; not to exercise ourselves in things too high for us, but to fight against our lusts, and trouble none but ourselves; though this aged world is grown over-wise, and hath found out a way to divorce Religion from honesty and peace. This is truly Christianity, the command and practice of Christ, who would not be an Arbitrator between two brethren; For who, saith Christ, hath made me a Judge or Divider over you? my business is to give you general precepts, which you must draw down to particular cases, and not to put my hand to help to manage the affairs and business of particular men, who came down into the world as rain into a fleece of wool, to beget us with his Word, that we his children might move and walk in the world as he came down into it, that is, without noise.  
Lastly, this is truly honourable, a mark which the ambition of a Christian should fly to; for it is an honour to cease from strife, Sedere, Quiescere, so it is rendered, to sit still and be quiet; possess yourselves, 
Prov. 20.3.  saith S. Paul, in sanctification and honour, in sanctity, which is your honour, by which you honour & adorn the Temple of the holy Ghost. We count it indeed an honour to make our tongues our own, & speak what we list; to make our hands our own, and do what we please; to pursue our enemies and take them, & beat them as small as the dust before the wind; we count it an honour to stand in the valley, and to touch the mountains till they smoke; to reach at that which is above us, and pull it down; to divide that which is united, to shake that which is established, to violate that which should not be touched, and are ever moving and heaving upward to be more than we should be, to be what we should not be; vile, and ignoble, and dead in our own place, & never honourable (we think) till we have left it behind us, to gain us a name, though it be by firing a temple, or setting the world itself in Combustion.  
Thus honours are dispensed amongst the children of men, amongst the Sons of Belial; honourable Schismatics descended from Jeroboam the Son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin; honourable Revengers of the tribe of Simeon and Levi, those brethren in evil; honourable hypocrites, Pharisees and the Sons of Pharisees, a generation of vipers; honourable murderers, of their Father the devil, who was so from the beginning. Ambitious, humorous, covetous, discontent, forlorn and desperate persons.  Quosque suae rapiunt sceleratae in praelia causae. 
These are the Grandees, the honourable persons of this world; but in the Court, and Heraldry of heaven, we find no such titles of honour. No, Writ these men desolate, who shall not prosper, though they do prosper; writ them down Haters of God, Despiteful, Boasters, Inventors of evil things, Fools without understanding; but the man, who is quiet, and peaceable, he is the honourable man, though he lie on a Dunghill, though he sits amongst the dogs of the flocks; like unto the Angels, nay like unto God, and holding resemblance with him, transformed from glory to glory; the same though the fashion of the world change every day; not stealing into honour, as those great thiefs of the world, Alexander, and Hannibal, and Marius, and Sylla, errore hominum, by the error and mistake of men, who call fools Politicians, and Madmen valiant; but Judicio Dei, by the Judgement and sentence of God, himself made proprietary of it, being his Soldier, who hath fought against none but himself; being his Priest, who hath sacrificed himself, all his lusts, and desires, and animosities; being his King too, who hath awed, and commanded, and governed himself in peace, and hath subdued every thing that might disquiet either himself or others; and so made a Royal Priesthood unto the Lord. Thus, thus shall it be done to the man, whom the King of kings will honour. This honour have all his Saints in this life, and in the next, Everlasting Glory.  
You see then, brethren, your calling; you are called to holiness, and you are called to peace and quietness; you see the study you are employed in by the blessed Apostle, as a hard, so an honourable study; and in the ways of honour, who would not move? we must therefore make one step further, and learn the method which is prescribed, or the means to keep us at peace with ourselves and others; we must 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, we must do our own business, and labour with our hands, as he hath commanded. But of this in the next.    

 blazon or royal coat of arms of England and Wales HONI ●…T QVI MAL Y PENSE  
THE TWENTIETH SERMON.  

PART II.  1 THES. 4.11. 
— And to do your own business, and to work with your own hands, as I have commanded you.  
OUr progress in our studies and endeavours is commonly answerable to our method, and the rules we observe; which if they be proper and connatural to the end which we have set up, omnia breviora fiunt, our labour and pains are the less, and our profit and improvement more. For every man would be quiet in his own place, and pretends he is so, when he is busy and tumultuous abroad; the Covetous man is in his place, when he joins House to House, and lays Field to Field, till there be no place; the ambitious is in his place, when he flies out of it, never at rest, till he reach that height, where he cannot rest; the revenger is in his place, when he is digging in the bowels of his brother; the parasice, the Calumniator, the tale-bearer, the libeler, the seditious, all desire peace, and quietness, when they move as a tempest, drive down all before them, and are at last lost themselves in the ruin which they make; the flatterer is poisoned with his own oil; the calumniator is wounded with his own lie, and it returns back upon him into his own bowels; the Tale-bearer is consumed in the fire which he kindles; The wit which the Libeler scatters, flies back upon him, and many times is writ in his forehead; The Seditious are oft struck down with the noise which they make; divide the Commonwealth, and are distracted themselves: And though their craft, or violence, their hypocrisy, and perjury bring them home to that which their overdaring Hope first looked upon, yet there they find no rest, but move uneasily in the midst of those cares and fears which came not near them when their thoughts were at home; for they have never more business to do, then when they do not their own; and have not their end, when they have their end, because they went not that way, nor trod those paths, those plain and easy paths which did lead unto it.  
Now, there cannot be a truer Method in our study and endeavour to be quiet, than this which our Apostle hath here laid down: which in the 1 Cor. 7.20. he calls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, to abide patiently, Grot.  to abide in our calling, to abide there as in our own proper place, and sphere; as in our Castle, as in our Sanctuary, where we are safe, safe from those incursions and affronts, which will meet together, and multiply about us, to shake and disturb us when we are out of it. The surest way to be Quiet, is to abide in our calling, in that state and condition, in which the Hand of Providence hath placed us, and not to be drawn out of it by the splendour, or glory, the benefit, and fairer appearance and show of another man's: Not to swell, 2 Cor. 12.20. For when we swell, we swell over, and out of our place, and so nearer and nearer to danger; to that Opposition, which will beat against us, to drive us back, and shrink us into our own Measure and Compass; and either in ordinem redigere, as the phrase is, either drive us back to our own place, or leave us none to move in. Again, not to stretch beyond our line, 2 Cor. 10.14. for God in confining us unto our calling hath given us, as it were, our measure, hath drawn out a line which we must not pass; peccare est tanquam lineas transilire, saith Tully; 
Tull. Par. 16.  every action of ours hath its limit and Boundaries, and if we pass them we sin; if we stretch beyond these, and if we break through our bounds, 
Tert. Scorp.  and are busie-bodyes in other men's matters, 1 Pet. 4.15. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Alieni Speculatores, as Tertullian renders it, we take off our eye and care from our own, and send them abroad as spies, and observers of that which concerns us not; we hold our visitations, exercise our jurisdiction there, where we have no power. Our eye wanders, our ear is itching, our Tongue is walking through the Earth, our hand is reaching at every forbidden tree, our feet are in every man's house, our heart is the forge where we fashion out every man's business but our own; a Praetorium, or place of State, where we appoint out every man's Commission, set other men tasks, and neglect our own; and as it is in the Proverb, aedilitatem gerimus sine populi suffragio, invest ourselves with a power which was never given us, and usurp authority, which we were never voted to; and are neither quiet ourselves, nor suffer others to be so. 
A. Gellius. Lib. 11. Noct. ●…tic. c. 16. Senec. de Tranq. c. 12.  The Greeks call it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which Gellius cnfesses he cannot render, no not obscurely, in many words; Sineca inquietam inertiam, an unquiet and troublesome sloth, by which we run up and down, and never abide at one stay, but like men which run in haste to quench a fire, shoulder every one we meet, and tumble down ourselves and others in the way, and so fall together: Curiosus nemo est, quin sit malevolus, saith he in Plautus; 
Plaut. Stich. Act. 1. Sc. 3.  Curiosity is the breath of malice, and is mischievous; and mischief provokes wrath; and injustice and mischief on the one side, and impatience and wrath on the other, meet and strive, and struggle together; and in the contention either one or both are lost. And therefore Plato tells us, to meddle with our own matters, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, and not to busy ourselves in other men's, 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 etc. Plat. c. 4. de Repub.  is that which we call justice, for by this, we leave to every man that which is his untouched, and preserve to ourselves that which is ours; that is, we are just to others, and just to ourselves; we do not trouble and disadvantage other men in their station, and defend our own. But when we fly out and pass beyond our bounds, we are not what we should be, but carry about with us a world of iniquity; our thoughts are let lose full of desire, and are doubled upon us full of anxiety, and when we gain most, we are the greatest losers: we are injurious, false, deceitful; we are oppressors, thiefs, murderers, usurpers; we are all that in ourselves which we condemn in others; for this is the seminary of all those evils, which are sent forth so many emissaries to break the peace of Church and Commonwealth.  
And therefore not only Religion, but reason, not only Christianity, but nature itself hath copsed and bound us in from flying out, and hath designed to every man his proper business, that he may not stray nor wander abroad.  
And first, Christianity is the greatest peacemaker, 
Rom. 12.  and keeps every man to his own office; if Ministry, to wait on his Ministry; if teaching, to teach; if trading, to follow his Trade; if government, to rule with diligence; if service, to be obedient with singleness of heart, 
Exod. 16.  Ephes. 6. Every man hath his gift, and every man hath his measure and proportion; and, as it was in the gathering of Manna, he that hath much, hath nothing over, and he that hath little, hath no lack; every man's place is the best: 
Naz or 3.  for there is no place either in Church or Commonwealth which is not Honourable; and a great honour it is to serve God in any place: One Star differs from another Star in Glory; but in its proper sphere, every Stare shines, but out of it, is either a Mass, or lump, or nothing. It is true, indeed, in Christ Jesus there is neither high nor low, neither rich nor poor; no difference between the Noble and the Peasant, between him that grindeth at the Mill, and him that sitteth on the Throne; because his spiritual graces are communicated non homini, sed humano generi, not to this man; or that, to this calling or that, but to as many as will receive them, to all the world and every man that is Christ's servant, is a Peer, a Priest, and a King; and when he shall come to judge both the quick and the dead, he will not pardon this man because he was a king, nor condemn that man because he was a beggar; for neither was Dives put in hell, because he was rich, nor Lazarus carried into Abraham's bosom, because he was poor; neither was Nero lost, because he was an Emperor, nor Paul saved, because he was a Tentmaker; but yet for all this, he hath made up his Church, and form Commonwealths, not of Angels, but of men, who live in the world, and so under order and government; and hath assigned every man his place and calling, which if every man would keep and make good, every man would be quiet and in peace; the Church would be as heaven itself, all glory and all harmony; and the Commonwealth would be a body compact within itself, and never fly in pieces, but last for ever, and flourish in itself, being subject to no injury, but that of Time, or a greater and over-powerfull, foreign force; for that of a designed Period, and a fatality hanging over every body Politic, which at last sinks it down, and buries it in that ruin, upon which another is raised, is generally believed in the world, but upon no convincing evidence, having neither reason nor Revelation to raise it up to the credit of a Positive truth; for, That such a thing hath been done, is no good Argument, that it shall ever be so; and though God hath foretold the period and end of this or that monarchy, yet the prophecy doth not reach unto all; and he himself hath given us those rules and precepts, hath raised such a fence, and hedge about every commonwealth, which if we did not pluck it up ourselves, might secure, and carry them along in the course of things even to their end, that is, to the end of the world; but this we talk of, as we do of many other things, and talk so long, till we believe it, and rest on our guess and conjecture, as on a demonstration: but the truth is, we are our own fate and destiny, we draw out our thread, and cut it; we start out of our places, and divide ourselves from one another, and then indeed, and not till then, Fate and Necessity lie heavy upon a kingdom, and it cannot stand.  
Christianity binds us to our own business, and till we break lose, till some one or other steps out of his place from it, there is peace; we are safe in our lesser vessels, and the ship of the commonwealth rides on with that smoothness and evenness which it hath from the consistency of its parts in their own place; for though all are one in Christ Jesus, yet we cannot but see, that there is a main difference between the inward qualification of his members, and the outward administration and government of his Church. In the kingdoms of the world, and so in the Church visible, every man is not fit for every place; some must teach, and some govern; some must learn and obey; some must put their hand to the plough; some to this trade, and some to that; only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, as Aristotle speaks, those who are of more than ordinary wit and ability, 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Aristot. l. 6 Polit. c. 5.  must bear office in Church or Commonwealth. One is noble, another is ignoble; one is learned, another is ignorant; one is for the spade, and another for the sword; one for the flail, and sheephook, another for the sceptre: and such a disproportion is necessary amongst men; for nihil aequalitate ipsa inaequalius, 
Plin. Epist.  there is no greater inequality in the world, then in a body politic, where all the parts are equal; for that equality, which commends and upholds a Commonwealth, ariseth from the difference of its parts moving in their several measures and proportions, as music doth from discords; when every part answers in its place, and raiseth itself no higher than that will bear; when the magistrate speaks by nothing but the Laws, and the subject answers by nothing but his obedience; when the greater shadow the less, and the less help to fortify the great; when every part doth its part, and every member its office, than there is an equality and an harmony, and we call it peace. For if we move, and move cheerfully in our own sphere and calling, we shall not start forth to discompose or disorder the motion of others in theirs; if we fill our own place, we shall not leap over into another's; our desires will dwell at home; our covetousness and ambition die; our malice cease; our suspicion end; out discontent vanish, or else be soon changed and spiritualised; our desires will be leveled on happiness, we shall covet the best things, we shall be ambitious of heaven; we shall malice nothing, but malice, and destroy it; suspect nothing but our suspicion; and be discontent with nothing, but that we are so; and so in this be like unto God himself, and have our Centre in ourselves, or rather make peace our Centre, that every motion may be drawn from it, that in the compass and Circumference of our behaviour with others, all our Actions, as so many lines, may be drawn out, and meet, and be united in peace.  
And this is not only enjoined by Religion and the Gospel, but it is the Method of nature itself, which hath so ordered it, that every thing in its own place is at quiet and rest, and no where else; The earth moves not; water is not ponderous in its proper place; the fire burns not in its sphere, but out of it it hath voracitatem toto mundo avidissimam, saith Pliny, it spreads itself most violently, and devours every thing it meets with, nay poison itself is not hurtful to those tempers that breed it; 
Senec. ep. 81.  Illud venenum, quod serpents in alienam perniciem proferunt, sine suâ continent, saith Seneca; The venom of the Scorpion doth not kill the Scorpion, and that poison which serpents cast out with danger and hurt to others, they keep without any to themselves. And as it is in nature, so is it in the society of men: Our diligence in our own business is sovereign, and connatural to our estates and conditions, but most times poisonous abroad, and dangerous and fatal to ourselves and others. When Uzzah put forth his hand to hold up the Ark of God, and keep it from falling, though his intention were good, yet God struck him for his error and rashness in moving out of his place, and struck him dead, 
2 Sam. 6.7.  because he did not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, do his own business; when Uzziah invades the Priest's office, the 2. Chr. 26. and would burn Incense, and Azariah the Prophet told him, ad te non pertinet, it pertaineth not to thee, it is not thy business; even while the censer was yet in his hand, his sin was writ in his forehead, he was struck with a leprosy, & cut off from the city of the Lord, v. 21. When Peter was busy to inquire concerning John, What shall this man do? Our Saviour was ready with a sharp reply, quid ad te? what is that to thee? thy business is to follow me. When Christians out of a wanton and irregular zeal did throw down Images, and were slain by the Heathen in the very fact, the Church censured them as disturbers of the peace, rather than Martyrs; and though they suffered death in the defiance of Idolatry, yet allowed them no place in the Diptychs, or in the Catalogue of those who laid down their life for the truth. Corah riseth out of his place, and the earth swallows him up. Sheba is up and blows a Trumpet, and his head flies over the wall. Absalon would up into the Tribunal, which was none of his place, and was hanged in the Oak, which was fit for him; and if any have risen out of their place, as we use to say, on the right side, and been fortunate villains, their purchase was not great; honey mingled with gall, Honour drugged with the hatred and curses of men, with fears and cares, with gnawings within, and Terrors without: all the content and pleasure they had by their great leap out of their place, was but as Music to one stretched out on the Rack, or as that little light, which is let in through the crack or flaw of a wall into him that lies fettered in a loathsome dungeon, and at last their wages, which was death, eternal death, and howling for ever. Nay, when we are out of our place, and busy in that which concerns us not, though what we do may be in itself lawful, and most expedient to be done, yet we make that act a sin in us, which is another man's duty, and so shipwreck at that point, to which another was bound; perish in the doing of that, for which he shall perish, for not doing it: The best excuse that we can take up, is that we did honesta ment peccare, that we did that which is evil, as we say, for the best; that we did sin and offend God with a good intention and pious mind; which Gloss may be fitted to the greatest sin, and is the fairest Chariot the Devil hath, to carry us to hell. If we would be particular, the instances in this kind would be but too many: For such Agents the Enemy of the Truth hath always had in all the Ages of the Church, who have unseasonably disturbed the public peace, and their own, whose business it was (and sure it could be none of their own) to teach Pastors to Govern, and Divines how to Preach; every day to make a new coat for the Church; to hammer and shape out a new form and discipline, as if nothing could be done well, because they stood not by and had a hand in the doing it; and so make her not so fair, but certainly, as changeable as the moon. One sect dislikes this, and another that, and a third quarrels at them both; and every one of them, if their own fancy had been set up and established by another hand, would have kicked it down. For this humour is restless and endless, and for want of matter, will at last feed on him that nourisheth it: as it was in that experiment of the Egyptians in Epiphanius, who filled a bag with serpents, and when afterwards they opened it, found that the greatest had eat up the rest, and half of itself: we may well say of them, as Gregory the great doth, illos alienorum actuum sagax cogitatio devastat, they so busy their thoughts upon other men's actions, that they have none left for their own: which being sent abroad into the world, leave a devastation, a wilderness at home; which fly to every mark which is set up, but that which their calling and Religion directs them to aim at; whose whole life and employment is to do other men's business, and sleep in their own. It is not safe neither for Church nor commonwealth, that such busybodies should walk in matters so far above their sphere and compass; nor is it fit that Phaeton should sit too long in the chair; for if these turbulent, domineering spirits prevail, if the mercy and providence of God prevent it not, the whole course of nature will be set on fire, or else dislocated and perverted; and the foot shall stand where the hand doth, the ear shall speak, and the tongue hear, and the foot see; all shall be Prophets, all Teachers, I might say, all shall be kings, and I might add, all will be atheists.  
If then we will study peace, or desire to be quiet in our place, let RELIGION guide us, which hath drawn out to our hands the most exact method, and most proportioned to that end; or let us follow the method of nature itself; and in the course of nature thus we see it. The heavens are stretched forth as a canopy to compass the Air; the Air moves about the earth; the earth keeps its Centre, and is ; the Sun knoweth his season, and the Moon her going down; the Stars start not from their spheres: Heavy bodies ascend not, nor do the light go downwards; but all the parts of the Universe are tied and linked together by that law of providence and order, that they may subsist. And so it is both in Church and Commonwealth; we are not in Termino, we cannot be quiet and rest, but in our own place and function: what should a Star do in the earth, or a strone in the firmament? what should an inferior step into a superiors seat, and set himself above those who are over him in the Lord? which I am sure is to be out of his place, where he cannot move but disorderly. If men would but fill their own, they would have but little leisure to step into another man's place, or to be so much fools as to set their foot within their neighbour's doors. 
Thucydides.  For the Historian hath observed it, that those men who neglect their private affairs, are ever very busy in examining public proceed; well skilled in every man's duty but their own. Who fit to change the face of a Commonwealth, 
Julius Caesar before the civil war said it of himself, Quàm multis indigeo ut nihil habeam?  than he that was so far indebted, that he dared not to show his own? who wanted so much, that he might be worth nothing? who more ready to shake and dissolve a state, than he that hath wasted his own with riotous living? who will sooner be a traitor then a bankrupt?  
I might here urge and press this duty, which confines every man to his own business; 1 à decoro, from the grace, and beseemingnesse of it; for what garment can fit us better than our own? what business more natural to us then our own? what motion more graceful then in our own? our own place best becomes us, and we are riculous and monstrous in any other: Apelles with an all in his hand, or the cobbler with his pencil; Midas with ass' ears, or an ass in purple; Nero with his fiddle, or a fiddler with a crown; 
Commodus in his artifex, quae stationis imperatoriae non erant, etc. Ael. Lampridius.  Comodus making of glasses, a good dancer, and a sword-plaier, or a glasseman, and a dancer giving laws; a tradesman in the pulpit, or a divine with the meteyard in his hand; the Lord in his servants frock, and the servant on his foot-cloth, are objects of that nature, that they command our finger and our smile; and the first and easiest censure we pass on them, is our laughter, and it were happy for commonwealths, if they deserved no worse. But they are not only ridiculous, but ominous and prodigious, and appear like comets, threatening and ushering in some plague, or war, some strange alteration in Church or Commonwealth; whereas our own place (be it what it will) doth not only conserve, but become and adorn us; and our regular motion in it, is a fair prophecy of peace to ourselves and all that are about us; and though it be the lowest, we may be honourable in it, as Themistocles once said, being chosen into a mean office, that he would so manage it, as to make it of as great repute in Athens as the highest.  
2 . ab utili, from the advantage it brings; quod enim decet ferè prodest, saith Quintilian; for that which becomes us, 
Quint. instit. l. x. 1.  commonly doth also further and promote us; we usually say, our plough goes forward, and when the plough goes and is ours, when we sow our own seed, in our own ground, we have laid the foundation of a fair hope, and we seldom miss of a rich & plenteous harvest. When we venture out of our place, we venture as at a Lottery, where we draw many blanks, before we have one prize; and when that is drawn, it doth not countervail the fourtieth part of our venture; but the trumpet sounds as at a triumph, and we leave behind us more than we carried with us, and go away with the loss: So it is when we move in another man's place, we move upon hopes, which most times deceive us; when we do our own business, we find no difficulty but in the business itself, and no enemy, but negligence; but when we break our limits, and leap into other men's affairs, we meet with greater opposition; we meet with the Law, which is against us, and very often too strong for us; we meet with those who will be as violent to defend their station, as we are to trouble it; and if we chance to break through all these, yet when we have cast up our accounts, and reckon up the trouble we have undergone, the illegality and injustice of our proceed, the detestation of all good men, and the vengeance which hangs over us, with that benefit which we have reaped, we may put our advantage in our eyes, as they say, and drop it out.  
Lastly, à necessario, from the necessity of doing it; and I do not mean a legal, and Causative necessity, as the Civilians speak, a precise necessity, which the law and honesty lays upon us; but a necessity in respect of the end, which is to be quiet, which we cannot attain to but by our motion in our own place; for other paths are strange paths and heterogeneous to it; and the further we go in them, the further we are off, and meet with nothing but that which is Diametrically opposed to it; injustice, hatred, the curse both of God and man, goods which are of no value, whilst they are in our hands, and never estimable but in his, whose they truly are; which all are ill materials to make a pillow to rest on. In a word, in this our irregular motion we look toward the rising Sun, and travel towards the West; we run from the shade into a tempest; we seek for ease and rest, and have thrust ourselves into the Region of noise, and thunder, and darkness. Ask those boisterous and contentious spirits which delight in war; ask the Tyrants of the earth, those public, and privileged thiefs; ask those who do wade to their unwarranted desires through the fortunes and blood of others, and see how they are filled with horror and anxiety; how the riches, which they so greedily desired, have eaten them up; Behold them afraid of their fortunes, of their friends, of themselves, even fainting and panting on the Pinnacle of State, ready to be blown down with every puff of wind; as busy to secure their estate, as they were to raise it, and yet forced to that unhappy prudence which must needs endanger it. Behold one slain by his friends, another by his sons, a third by his servants, and some by their very soldiers, who helped to raise them to this formidable height. Look over all the Tragedies which have been written, scarce any but of these; 
— Sine caede & sanguine pauci.   
Few of them have brought their grey hairs unbloudy to their grave; and if this be to be quiet, we may in time be induced to believe, that rest and peace may be found even in hell itself.  
This then is not the way; and if we will reach home to the end, we must choose that path which leads unto it: This is not the Apostles method; no, saith Saint Paul, we have many members in one body, and all members have not the same office; having therefore different callings, and different gifts, and different places to move in, let every man wait upon and move in his own, for there he may be quiet, and no where else: let the Lawyer plead, and the Divine preach; let the husbandman plough the earth, and the Merchant the Sea; let the Tradesman follow his trade; let the Magistrate govern, and let all the people say Amen; let all men make good their place, and every man do his own business, and so rejoice together in the public order and peace: And as Cuiacius that famous Lawyer in France, 
Papyrius Massonius in Elog. illust. Viror. in vita Cuiacii.  when he was asked his opinion in points of Divinity, was wont to give no other answer but this, Nihil hoc ad Edictum Praetoris, this which you ask me hath to relation to the Edict of the Praetor; so when any temptation shall take us, and invite and flatter us Ire in opus alienum, to put our hands to another man's work, let us drive it back and vanquish it with this considerate resolution, that it is not amongst the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, that it is none of our business, no more pertaining to our calling, than Divinity doth to the Edict of the Praetor. And then as we confine ourselves to our own calling, so let us be active and constant in our motion in it; and as it follows in the Apostles method, let us shake off sloth, and work with our hands; which is next to be considered.  
For indeed, idleness is the mother and nurse of this pragmatical curiosity; 
Plaut. Mostell.  Haec mihi verecundiam, & virtutis modum deturbavit, saith he in Plautus, this takes off our blush, and makes us bold adventurers to engage ourselves in other men's actions; for when the mind of man is at lose, not taken up and busied in the adorning of itself, then Dinah-like it must gadd abroad to see the daughters of the Country, and mingle itself with those contemplations which are, as it were, of another Tribe and Nation, mere strangers unto her. It is the character of the strange woman, Prov. 7. That she is garrula & vaga, that she is loud, and ever straggling (vagum scortum as Horace calls her) and her feet abide not in her house; 
Polit. 7. c. 3.  for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, saith Aristotle in his Politics.) He that will be Idle, will be evil; and he that will do nothing, will do that which he should not; and the reason is given by the Stoic, mobilis & inquieta mens homini data est, the mind of man is full of activity, ever in motion, and restless, now carried to this object, and anon to that; it walks through the world, and out of the world, and is not at rest, when the body sleeps; and if it do not follow that which is good, it will soon fasten to that which is evil; for it is not as a wedg of lead, but of the nature of an Angel, which is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, which cannot sleep; as Aristotle spoke of children, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, it cannot rest, and be quiet; and therefore the same Philosopher much commends 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Archytas his rattle, as a profitable invention; for being put into the hands of children, 
Aristot. l. 8. Polit. c. 6.  it keeps them from breaking vessels of use; and so this restless humour is made less hurtful, by diversion. And such a course, God and nature may seem to have taken with us, not to dull this activity in us, but to limit and confine it; and as he hath distributed to every man a gift, so he hath allotted to every man a Calling answerable to that gift, that every man being bound to one, may have the less scope and liberty to rove and make an incursion upon another man's calling. This is a primordial Law, of as great antiquity as the first man Adam, That we must work with our hands; For God will not every day work miracles for us, and send us, as he did the Israelites, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, as Basil speaks, food without the labour of ploughing and sowing. Every Dew will not bring us Manna, nor every rock yield us water; No, In sudore vultûs tui, In the sweat of thy brows thou shalt eat thy bread, was a Command as well as a Curse; and God hath so ordained it, that by fulfilling the Command, we may turn the Curse into a Blessing. We are not now in Paradise, but as our first Father, after he had forfeited it, mundo dati quasi metallo, as Tertull. 
l. de pallio.  speaks, condemned to the world as to the mines, to labour and dig, and so find that treasure we seek for. As heaven, so the earth is the Lords, and he hath given them both to the Sons of men; the food of our souls, and the food of our bodies are his gift, and he gives them, when he reveals and prescribes the means how we shall procure them; for the one he hath given us faculty and will, for the other strength and appetite; neither will the heavens how themselves down to take us in, nor the things of this world fall into our bosom, when we sit still, and lay no more out for them then a wish. 
Ps. 81.10.  Open thy mouth wide, and I will fill it, and the opening of our mouth is our Prayer, our Endeavour, our working with our hands, and then his blessings fall down, and fill it. Labour and industry is a thing so pleasing to God,  he hath even bound a blessing to it, which never leaves it, but is carried along with it, wheresoever it is, even in the mere natural, and heathen man; be the man what he will, it is almost impossible that diligence should not thrive, for a blessing goes along with it, as the light doth with the Sun, which may be shadowed or eclip'sd by the cloudiness of the times, or by some cross accident, but can never be quite put out: In a word, labour is the price of his gifts, and when we pay it down, by a kind of commutative justice, he brings them in, and puts them into our hands.  
Ut operemini manibus, that you work with your hands; which words take in all manual trades, and handycrafts, which are for use and necessity; all lawful trades; for even thiefs, and robbers, and Jugglers, 
Tertull. de Idololat. c. 5.  and cheaters, and forgers of writings do work, not with their feet, saith Tertullian, but with their hands; and he brings in his exception against Painters, and Statuaries, and Engravers, but no further than he doth against Schoolmasters, and Merchants, who bring in frankincense; in that respect only, as they sacrifice their sweat and their labour, and are subservient and ministerial, either to lust or Idolatry; 
Diligentia tua numen illorum est. Idem. c. 6. de Idololat.  for the diligence, saith he, of the Statuary is the divinity of the Idol; and we may say, those many unnecessary Arts and trades which are now held up with credit and repute in the world, because it will still be world, were at first the Daughters, and are now become the nurses of our luxury and lust; luxury begat them, and they send our luxury in triumph through the Streets: were Tertullian, whose zeal waxed so hot even against a purpleseller, to pass now through our great city with power and authority, 
Tot sunt artium venae, quot hominum concuprscentiae. Tertull. de Idol. c. 8. 1 Tim. 6.8.  how many shops would be shut up? or rather how many would there be left open? for it is not easy to number those Arts and Crafts, which had they never been professed, we might have had Food and Raiment, with which we Christians, above all the generations of men, should be content.  
But it is not for me to determine which are necessary, and which are not, but to leave it to the magistrate; there be Arts and trades enough besides these, 
vide Plutarch. vit. Lycurgi.  to exercise our wit, our strength, our hands, and such as Lycurgus might have admitted into his Commonwealth, whose prudence and care it was to shut out all that was unnecessary; the first that required the labour of the hands was tillage and husbandry, for, Antiquis temporibus nemo Rusticari nescivit, faith Ischomachus in Columel. 
Columel. l. 11. c. 1.  In the first age no man was ignorant of this Art, and the learned have observed, that the original of humane Laws, which were the preservers of peace, the boundaries to keep every man in his own place, was from tillage, and the first division of grounds; whence Ceres, who is first said to have devised and taught the sowing of Corn as she is called Frugifera, the goddess of plenty, so is she termed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the maker of Laws; and in honour of her the Athenians celebrated those feasts which they called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  
— Mactant lectas de more bidentes  
Legiferae Cereri.— 
Virgil   
They did sacrifice to Ceres the Lawmaker. These men never heard of the curse in Paradise, yet by the very light of nature, they saw the necessity of labour; the necessity did I say? nay the dignity and honour of it; for man was made and built up to this end, saith Aristotle, ad intelligendum & agendum, to understand and to work; and what more unworthy a man, who is made an active creature, then to bury himself alive in sloth and idleness? to be like Saint Paul's wanton widow, dead whilst he lives? to be a more unprofitable lump than the earth, to live and show so little sign of life? whereas the ground receiveth rain, & sendeth back its leaf and grass; what can be more unbeseeming, then to have feet, and not to go; to to have hands, and not to use them? and therefore that of the Apostle, Let not him that laboureth not, eat, is not only true, because Saint Paul spoke it, but Saint Paul spoke it because it is true; a Dictate not only of the spirit, but of nature itself. Man is borne unto labour, saith Job; it is natural to him, as natural, as for the sparks to fly upwards; and if we rightly weigh it, it is as great a prodigy, as monstrous a sight, to see an idle person, that can do nothing but feed and  himself, and breath, as to see a stone fly, or fire descend to the Centre of the earth; I may add, as to see the Sun stand still: For as the Sun, so Man naturally should rejoice to run his course.  
Shall I now awake the sluggard (if any Thunder will awake him) and tell him he is a thief that he drinks not water out of his own cistern? That he eateth stolen bread: If I should, I have Saint Paul, 
2 Thess. 3.12.  and Reason to justify me, who tells him plainly, that he that works not at all, walks inordinately, and eats not his own bread, as if it were not his own, if his own hands brought it not in; and Ephes. 4.26. Let him that stole, steal no more, but rather let him labour and work with his hands: If he will not steal, let him labour; if he do not labour, he doth but steal, even that which in common esteem is his own. For we must not think, that they only are thiefs, who do vitam vivere vecticulariam, who dig down walls by night, or lie in wait upon the hills of the robbers; Fur est, qui rem contrectat alienum, 
Festus in verb vecticularia v. ta.  he is a thief, which makes use of that which is not his; and then we may arraign the ilde, slothful person at this bar, as guilty of this crime; for he roasteth that, which he never took in hunting; he useth the creature, 
Prov. 12.27.  to which he hath no right; He hath interdicted, and shut himself out from the benefit of fire and water, and all humane commerce; he hath outlawed and banished himself from the world: He hath robbed himself; for though he have plenty of all things, yet idleness will blow upon it and blast it; He robs the Commonwealth, for Interest reipub. ut quis re sua benè utatur, private diligence is a public good, and the careful managing of every man's estate, is advantageous to the whole. And last of all, he robs his own soul of the service and Ministry of his body, which was made a servant to it; he robs his soul of his soul, of all the power and activity it hath, which serves for no use but to carry him to a feast, and from thence to his bed, where he lies the picture and representation of himself, of what he was when he was awake, and will be yet more like himself, when he is in his grave; For here he is but a walking, talking, breathing shadow, nay dead, compassed about with stench and rottenness, whilst many evil spirits hover over his grave, many temptations are ready to seize on him, and we may say of him, as Seneca did of his friend Vatia, hic situs est, In this world he doth not live, but is buried. 
Senec. ep. 55.   
I might here bring to this bar those cloistered Monks and Friars, who leave the world as men do virtue and learning, not because they loath and detest it, but because the way unto them is hard and rugged; leave the world to enter into a paradise, where all things grow up of themselves, and of many of them that of Martin Luther (who was himself once a Monk) is true, Monachos ignavia fecit, Idleness hath made more Monks, than Religion; who leave not the world for Christ, but shadow themselves under their Cowl and his name, that they may the more quietly enjoy it.  
But to pass by these as none of our Horizon; A sort of Christians there are, and they think themselves of the best sort (we may call them Monks at large) as idle as they, but not cloistered up, who though they labour for the things of this world, because they love them well, yet look not upon their labour as any acceptable service to God, but break it off many times most unnecessarily, and leave their duty behind them, to go up with the Pharisee, into the Temple, not to pray, but to hear a Sermon, and then return back to their shop, and commend and confute it; Hear and do not, but do the contrary. They call it devotion, but it is the Itch and wantonness of the Ear which wastes their devotion, and sometimes their estates; this they delight in, and this is their Religion, nothing but words and noise; to this they sacrifice their time which is due to their calling, and then too oft redeem it with fraud and cozenage, which hath so often been presented to them as the gall of bitterness, even in the dish which they love. The word of God? can we hear it too oft? Yes; if we do not practise it, or if we practise the contrary; if we can go from the mount, and break the law, whilst yet the thunder is in our Eare. I may ask with the Apostle, Is all the body hearing? doth all Religion dwell in the ear? Nay, I will add further, doth all Religion consist in prayer? (For what? I must answer these men, as Saint Austin did the Monks in his time) are we not bound alike to all the precepts of God? or may we lay out all our time in the performance of one duty, and leave none for the rest? shall the ear rob the tongue, and the tongue the hand? 
August. de Oper. Monach.  shall one duty swallow up another? Si ab his avocandi non sumus, nec manducandum est; If we may not sometimes break off our devotion, we must break another precept, which binds us, to work with our hands; and yet we need not so break it off, 
Sudans m●ssor psalmis se avocat, & curva atrundens vites falce vinitor aliquod Davidicum canit. Hieron. Marcell.  but that we may carry it along with us, even carry the savour of it, which may mingle itself with the actions of our calling, and so perfume them, and make them pleasing and acceptable to God. Arator stivam tenens Hallelujah cantat, saith Saint Hierom; the husbandman may pray, and praise the Lord, and sing an Hallelujah at the plough tail, and so may the smith with the hammer in his hand: and certainly, if we would entertain them, Religion and Devotion would wait upon us even in our shops, and be the best attendants we have, would make us honest, and make us rich. Palladius in his Lausiaca tells us of a certain virgin, who said seven hundred prayers in a day. Take the gloss in the margin (for it much took me when I first read it) Decem orationes constitutae publicis rebus occupato non minoris pretii sunt, quàm tercentum nihil agentis. Ten prayers, saith the gloss, made by a man employed in public affairs, or in his own private calling, are of as high an esteem, and of force available, as three hundred conceived or uttered by him who doth nothing but pray. I may be bold to add; he that hears but one Sermon, and meditates thereon, and repeats and acts it over in his life, labouring painfully and honestly in his calling, is more pleasing and acceptable to God, than he that neglects his calling; and if it were possible, in one week, heard an hundred. And if you will not take my word, I doubt not, but you will give some respect to S. Augustine's reason. Citius exauditur una obedient is oratio, quòm decem millia contemptoris; one prayer of an obedient man, who walketh in his calling according to the rule, shall be sooner heard of God, than ten thousand from him, who makes his diligence to keep one commandment a privilege and warrant to break the rest; for what folly is it, ut, quod bonum est frequentius audiatur, id●ò facere nolle quod auditur? under pretence of having time to hear, to take no time at all to practise that truth which is heard?  
But here the devout sluggard may perhaps find something in scripture, which may serve him as a pillow to sleep on: for as the covetous person can cull out certain thrifty Texts to countenance his covetousness, as that, He that provides not for his family is worse than an Infidel; and, let not him that laboureth not eat; so hath the idle and negligent person his, as Take no-care for the morrow; Take no care for your life; Labour not for the meat that perisheth. Thus, as Tertullian speaks, 
Tert. l. de. J●junio.  they can draw the Scripture either way, ut haec restringere fraenos, illa laxare videatur, either to give a check, or to let lose the reins to idleness and sloth. But the Scripture is truth in every part, and one part cannot contradict another; for we may work with our hands, and yet care no more for the morrow, then if it were no part of time, then if it were nothing; and for aught we know, it is so, for who can say, he hath a morrow? and we may easily reconcile them by the two persons, The covetous, and the careless; for both Texts do not so apparently fit both: Let then the careless and negligent person have this goad set in his side, that if he provide not for his family, He is worse than an Infidel; this Text is infallibly true for him: and then hold back the covetous beast with this bit and bridle, that he must not care for the morrow; and this Text will fit him, qui ipsa quiete fatigatur, as Hilary speaks, who is weary of nothing more than rest, and is in labour, if he labour not and drudge in the world; and thus may the careless learn to labour, and the covetous forget to care; the sluggard may awake from his Lethargy, and the covetous not rise so early, nor make such haste to be rich; the one Text is as a whip on the back of the slothful, and the other as a chain to bind the desires of the covetous; to the one, labour not; to the other, labour cannot be spoken with accent sharp enough. Our Saviour could not be too expressive against covetousness, because it is a vice which bears up and carries a fair name and credit in the world; men speak well of it, and call it wisdom, and providence. Again, Saint Paul could not speak loud enough to the idle person, because idleness is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a flattering and pleasing evil, and which we do not easily shake off, especially when it hath got a mask on, and comes forth with the varnish and colour of piety, and can shroud and shelter itself under the beauty of holiness.  
We must not pass by the idle and boisterous gallant, but give him a salute, because he looks for it; for we see too many, who have no calling, no profession, qui volitant velut umbrae, who flutter up and down like shades, and apparitions; like ghosts, which leave no impression behind them, or such a one, which is as dishonourable as the hole in a slaves Ear, or the mark in the forehead of an Impostor: They plough not, they trade not, they preach not, they plead not, they neither sow nor reap, yet Solomon in all his Royalty was not clothed like one of these; nor yet so wise, as they are in their own conceits: Salve Getulice, why should we not bow the knee, and do them reverence? Nay rather we may be bold to tell them, that they are Carcinomata reipub. the Cankers and impostumes of their Country; that they are pinned to the Commonwealth, as their Feathers are to their Caps, for show, but for no use at all; like those Parasitical plants (as the Herbalists call them) which spring out of other plants, and have their juice, and nourishment, & vegetable life foom their roots, or as warts upon a man's hand, which grow up with it, and trouble and deface it; or indeed as Idols, which though dressed up, and painted, and gilt, yet are nothing in this world.  
I know they may reply, that they are born rich, and what they possess is theirs by inheritance; this may be true, but yet they were not born fools, nor were luxury and idleness entailed upon them at the same time; they were born men, and not as the beasts of the field, to eat and drink, and straggle up and down, and then fall to the ground; were they born to great possessions? It is then most unnatural to draw this conclusion from hence, that they may do what they list; It will follow rather, that they are more bound to be active in doing of good, that they are more obliged to God which puts that bread into their mouths, which he makes others stoop for to the ground. I will not put the sheephook into their hands, and yet the Patriarches were shepherds; I will not bind them to a trade, yet Kings and Emperors have bound themselves to one, and made it their recreation; I will not reach to them the Axe or the chisel, and yet Joseph of the house of David, and according to the latter, Christ himself was one; I will not pull their hands to the plough, for than I should take them from Compliment, and the Gentleman were lost: but I cannot think that God gave them plenty, to make them idle; that he did so much for them, that they should do nothing, or which is worse, learn to defy him; give them strength, to make it the law of unrighteousness; wit, to descant on his providence, to derogate from his miracles, to baffle religion, to laugh at judgement, and to mock at Hell; we cannot think he made them rich, to make them Atheists (for nothing else can be raised upon idleness; not those mountains of piety and charity, but big and swelling imaginations, which exalt themselves against God.) There be other trades besides those that are Manual; vivendi arts, the Art of good life, the art of composing our Affections, the Art of ordering our private affairs, and of being subservient to the public, qua non sub manunascuntur, which cannot be learned in the midst of Riot and wantonness; which will cost us more pains, than they take, who work with their hands; for should the ploughman turn student, he would look back upon his former days, as so many Festivals, and on his labour as not so great, compared with that toil and contention of mind which will stretch and rack him in the days of his gown. To conclude this; non otiose vivit, qui qualitercunque utiliter vivit, saith Aquinas, he lives not idly who employs himself in doing good, whether as a Divine, or Lawyer, or Tradesman, or Gentleman, or Lord, or King. He doth many times more than labour with his hands who doth stretch his endeavours to the furthese, to be profitable to himself and others, to act his part upon the common stage, to make good his place in the Commonwealth; who binds himself to those acts which are proper to him, and therefore do most become him. Facito aliquid operis ut te semper Diabolus inveniat occupatum, saith Saint Hierom; be always doing some work or other, 
Aezyptiorum monasteria hunc morem tenent, ut nullum absque operis labore suscipiant, non tam propter victûs necessitatem, quàm animae salutem. Hieron. Rustico.  that the devil may find thee full and and employed, so busy in thy calling, that he shall not spy any place where he may fasten his dart: if he thus find thee, he hath lost his craft and his strength, and will neither be a serpent to deceive, nor a lion to devour thee. This is S. Paul's counsel, and part of his method, and he sets his seal to it, and doth not only counsel, but command it, study to be quiet, do your own business, work with your hands, sicut praecepimus, as I have commanded you.  
Which we may look upon (and we can but look upon it) as a command, and as Saint Paul's command. And first, it comes under the command, which makes it necessary to be observed, and leaves it not to us to do when and how we please; as necessary for us to do, as to believe in Christ. For howsoever we may count them as petty duties, and of a lower form yet our blessed Saviour puts an high esteem upon them, and upon the least title and jota of them, and Math. 5.19. tells us plainly, that if any shall break one of these least commandments, which regulate our conversation with men, he shall be called the least of the kingdom of heaven, that is, shall be of no esteem at all, that is, shall be shut out of that kingdom. For a strange thing it may seem, that faith, and hearing, and prayer, and fasting, and many times but the formality of them, should make up the main Battalia in our spiritual warfare, as those three hundred did in gideon's Army; and those Omiliticall virtues, silence, peaceableness, honesty, meekness, doing our own business, industry in our calling, like those who lapped not, should be left behind, as not fit for service. 'Tis true, the Church is founded upon a rock, upon faith in Christ, but then faith implieth practice, even the practice of those virtues which concern us as members of the Commonwealth as well as of the Church; for the Commonwealth is not in the Church, but the Church in the Commonwealth; for every Commonwealth is not Christian. And as Saint Paul tells us, that he that knows not how to rule his own house, is not fit to take care of the Church; no more can he who at pleasure breaks these ties and ligaments, with which nature and Religion have linked him in a body politic, and that many times under pretence of Religion, boast or comfort himself in his relation to Christ. He that is not a good member of the Commonwealth, is not a true member of the Church; he that is not a good servant, or a good master; a good governor, or a good subject; he that is not a just dealer, an honest tradesman, a faithful labourer; he that loves not his neighbour as himself, he that is not quiet, and peaceable, and industrious (deceive himself as he please) can have nothing but the name of a Christian. For what! will hearing only, or praying, or fasting, lie upon this foundation? was Jesus Christ laid as the foundation only to bear up speculative and fanciful men, only to bear up Pharisees and hypocrites? will not discretion, and seasonable silence, and honesty and diligence in our calling concur to that superstructure which must rise up as high as heaven? will our eye, or tongue, or ear, or knee, or fancy bow and incline God, and will he not once look down upon our order, upon our peaceable, and honest conversation with men? Is Religion turned anchoret, and shut up within ourselves, there only to listen after words and sounds, & breathe them out again? and must not she come forth to order our steps amongst men? may she not be seen in a settled mind, and eye; in a labouring hand, as well as in an open ear, and a busy tongue, which speaks loud and oft of God's kingdom, when we do those things which will shut us out? Let us not deceive ourselves; to be quiet, to meddle in our own business, to labour with our hands, are subpraecepto, are under the command, and binding, and are tendered to us, and prescribed as a law. Indeed nature and Reason, one would think, should bind us, and guide our motion in that sphere, or place, wherein we are fixed; for why should not every man be what he is made to be? and although I do not think that every command in the Gospel, is juris naturalis, and so made known to us by the light of nature (for nature certainly could not teach us to die for our brethren, which yet the Gospel doth) yet there is nothing commanded there, which carries not with it a natural dignity and beseemingnesse, to which, with a little instruction, 
Vide Grot. l. r. de Jur. Bell. & pac. c. 12. Sect. 6.  and upon serious consideration, we shall willingly subscribe. And these duties, which we now speak of, may seem clearly to issue from those dictates of nature, that we should do to others, as we would be done to; that all things should be done decently and to edification. That nothing should be done against conscience; which had been of force for the ordering of men's actions of this nature, though the Scripture had never expressed them, and were of force before the Gospel was written, and did bind us, not only because they were written, but because they were just. For why should he who would not be spoilt himself, rob another? why should he who makes his house his castle, be so ready to invade, and break into his neighbours? why should he who is even sick of a cheat, be so ready to put one upon anorher? why should be that would be quiet at home, be so troublesome abroad? why should not Ahab be as willing to part with his crown, as to take Naboths vineyard? But Christ, the best master and lawgiver that ever was, came not to destroy, but to perfect nature; not to blot out those common notions which we brought into the world with us, but to make them more legible, to improve them, and so make them his Law; and if we look upon them as not belonging to us, we ourselves cannot belong to the covenant of grace; for even these duties are weaved in, and made a part of the covenant; and if we break the one, we break the other; and not only if we believe not, but if we live not peaceably; if we stretch beyond our line; if we labour not in our calling, we shall not enter into his rest. For these also are his Laws, and these doth our blessed Apostle teach and command.  
And, to conclude; such a power hath Christ left in his Church, conferred it first on his Apostles, and those who were to succeed and supply their place, who were to speak after them in the person and in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, we will not dispute now what power it is; it is sufficient to say, it is not an Earthly, but a Heavenly Power, derived from Christ himself, the Fountain and original of all power whatsoever. As Christ's kingdom is not of this world, so is not this power of that nature, as to stand in need of an Army of Soldiers to defend and hold it up, but is like to the object and matter it works upon, spiritual; a power to command, to remember every man of his duty in the Church or Commonwealth; for the Church and Commonwealth are two distinct, but not contrary things, and both powers were ordained to uphold and defend each other; the civil power to exalt Religion, and Religion to guard and fence the civil power, and both should concur in this, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all Godliness and honesty. Our commission is from heaven, and we need no other power then his, that sealed it, and the virtue and Divinity of it shall then be made manifest, when all earthly power shall cease, and even Kings and they who did what they list, shall tremble before it. We see, that power which is exercised here on earth, though the glory of it dazzle an eye of flesh, yet sits heavy upon them who wear it; we see it tortures them, that delight in it; eats up them that feed on't; eats up itself, and driving all before it at last falls itself to the ground, and falls as a millstone upon him that hath it, and bruiseth him to pieces. It is not such a power, but I may be bold to say, though it be looked upon, & laughed at, & despised by the men of this world, yet is it a greater power than that, which sometimes sets it up on high, and sometimes makes it nothing, and hath its end, when it hath not its end; for to publish our masters will, to command in his name is all; and though the command prove to some the savour of death unto death, yet the power is still the same, and doth never fail; and if men were, what they profess themselves, Christians; if they had any taste of the powers of the world to come, they would more tremble at this, then at the other; be more afraid of a just reproof, than a whip; of an excommunication, than a sword; of the wrath of God, which is yet scarce visible, then of that which comes in fire and tempest to devour us; for his favour, or his wrath ever accompanies this power, which draws his love nearer to them that obey it, and pours forth his vengeance on them that resist it.  
To conclude then; look upon the command, and honour the Apostle that brings it; for the commands sake; for his sake, whose power, and command it is. A power there is proper and peculiar to them, who are called to it; and if the name of power may move envy (for we see men fret at that which was ordained for their good, and so waste and exhale all their Religion till it be nothing) if the name of power bear so harsh a sound, we will give you leave to think it is not much material, whether you call it so or no; whether we speak in the imperative mood, hoc fac, do this upon your peril; or only positively point as with the finger, this is to be done: we will be any thing, do any thing, be as low as you please, so we may raise you above the vanities of the world, above that wantonness, which storms at that, which was ordained for no other end, but to lift you out of ruin, into the highest heavens. Our power, and the command of Christ differ not so much, but the one includes and upholds the other; and if you did but once love the command, you would never boggle at the name of power, but bless and honour him that brings it.  
Oh that men were wise! but so wise, as not to be wiser than God, as not to choose and fall in love with their own ways as more certain, and direct unto the end, than Gods; as not to prefer their own mazes and Labyrinths, and uncertain gyrations drawn out by lust and fancy, before those even and unerring paths found out by an infinite wisdom, and discovered to us by a mercy as infinite; oh that we could once work out and conquer the hardship of a command, and then see the beauty of it, and to what glory it leads us; we should then receive an Apostle in the name of an Apostle, and look upon the command, though brought in an earthen vessel, as upon heaven itself; oh that we were once spiritual; then those precepts which concern our conversation on earth, would be laid hold on and embraced, as from the Heaven Heavenly; then should we be as quiet as the Heavens, which are ever moving, and ever at rest, because ever in their own place; then should we be as the Angels of Heaven, who envy not one another, malice not one another, trouble not one another, but every Angel knows his office, and moves in his own order; and our assiduous labour in our calling would be a resemblance of the readiness of those blessed spirits, who at the beck of Majesty have wings, and haste to their duty; who are ever moving, and then in their highest exaltation, when they are in their ministry. In aword; then should we every one sit under his own vine, and figtree, and no evil eye should look towards him, no malice blast him, no injury assault him, no bold intrusion unsettle him; but we should all rejoice together, the poor with the rich, the weak with the strong, the low with the high, all bless one another, help one another, guard one another, and so in the name of the prince of peace walk peaceably together, every one moving in his own place, till we reach that peace, which yet we do not understand, but shall then fully enjoy to all Eternity.    

The One and Twentieth SERMON.  

PART I.  MICAH v. 6. 
Wherewith shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before the high God? Shall I come before him with burnt-offerings? etc.—  MICAH v. 8. 
He hath showed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?  
THere be many who say, Who will show us any good? saith the Pophet David, Ps. 4.6. For Good is that which men naturally desire; and here the Prophet Micah hath fitted an Answer to this Question, He hath showed thee, O man, what is good. And in the discovery of this Good, he useth the same method which the Philosopher doth in the description of his Moral Happiness; First shows us what it is not, and then what it is: And as the Philosopher shuts out Honour, and Riches, and Pleasure, as being so little necessary, that we may be happy without them; so doth the Prophet, in the verses going before my Text, in a manner, reject and cast by  offerings, and all the Ceremonial, and Typical part of Moses law, all that outward, busy, expensive and sacrificing Religion, as no whit essential to that good, which he here fixeth up, as upon. a pillar for all eyes to look upon; as being of no great alliance or nearness, nor fit to Incorporate itself with that piety, which must commend us to God: and as a true Prophet, he doth not only discover to the Jews the common error of their lives, but shows them yet a more excellent way, 
Non satis est reprehendisse peccntem si non doceas recti viam. Columel. de Re Rust. l. 11. c. 1.  first ask the question, will the Lord be pleased with thousands of Rams? whether sacrifice be that part of Religion with which we may appear and bow before our God, and be accepted? and then in his answer, in the words of my Text, quite excluding it, as not absolutely necessary, and essential to that which is indeed Religion.  
And here the question, will the Lord he pleased with sacrifice? adds Emphasis and Energy, and makes the Denial more strong, and the Conclusion in the Text more positive and binding then if it had been in plain terms, and formally denied; then this Good had been showed naked and alone, and not brought in with the spoils of that Hypocrisy, which supplants and overthrows it, and usurps both its place, and name; shall I come before him with  offerings? is in effect, I must not do it; That which is good, that which is Religion hath so little relation to it, that it can subsist without it; and most times hath been swallowed up, and lost in it. It was in the world before any command came forth for Sacrifice; and it is now most glorious, when every Altar is thrown down, and hath the sweetest favour, now there is no other smoke. The Question puts it out of all question, That this good is best without it. What will the Lord do to the Husbandmen, that killed the heir? Math. 21.41. Our Saviour puts it up by way of question; and you know how terrible the answer is; what will he do? what will he not do? 
1 Cor. 11.  He will miserably destroy those Husbandmen. Is it comely that a woman pray uncovered? Judge in yourselves: you cannot say it is comely. As the Athenians used to ask the guilty person who was arraigned before them, and by sufficient evidence convict of the crime; Are you not worthy of death? That they might first give sentence against themselves, and acknowledge the sentence to be just, which was to pass upon them: so doth the Prophet here ask the sacrificing Jews, who so doted on outward Ceremony, that they scarce cast an eye, or look towards that, which was truly the service of God, as if there were no more required at their hands, then that which was to be done at the Altar: shall you bring burnt offerings? shall you offer up your firstborn, the fruit of your body for the sin of the Soul? yourselves shall be witness against yourselves, and out of your own mouth shall you be condemned. O ye Hypocrites! you cannot be so ignorant as to think, nor so bold as to profess, that this is the true service of God. I remember Gregory Nazianzen calls man 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 (and we may call this good in the Text so) a spiritual heavenly statue; and as the statuary by his art and with his Chezell doth work off all that is unnecessary and superfluous, and having finished and made it complete in every part, fixeth it, as the lively representation of some God or Goddess, or Heroic person whose memory he would perpetuate in the minds of those, who are to look upon it; so doth the Prophet Micah here, being to delineate and express the true servant of God in his full and perfect proportion, first out of the Lump and Mass, which made up the body of the Jews Religion, strikes off that which was least necessary, and most abused; all that formality, and outward ceremony in which they most pleased themselves; Burnt offerings and calves of an year old, these he lays aside, as that which may be best spared, as that which God did not require for itself, or for any good there was naturally in it, and then draws him out in every part, in those parts, which do indeed make him up in that perfection, in which he may shine, as a great example of eternal happiness. Wherewith shalt thou come before the Lord? and bow thyself before the high God? not with  offerings; those he puts by, as no essential materials, as the scurf, and least considerable part of Religion; but with thy heart, and with thy will and affections; with a Just, and merciful, and Broken heart; with these thou shalt walk with him, or before him, even with Justice, and Mercy, and Humility, with those graces, which will make thee like unto him, and transform thee into the Image of God, and set thee up as a fair statue, and representation of thy maker; He hath showed thee O man, what is good, etc.  
Or if you please, you may conceive of true piety and that which is good, as of a tree of life planted in the midst of Paradise, in the midst of the Church, spreading as it were its Branches, whereof these 3. in the Text are the fairest: 1. Justice and uprightness of conversation; a straight and even Branch bearing no fruit, but it's own; 2. Mercy, and Liberality, yielding much fruit to those weary and faint souls, who gather it, and are refreshed under the shadow of it: and 3. Humility, a Branch well laden, full, and hanging down the head.  
More plainly, and for our better proceeding, thus. He taketh away the one, that he may establish the other: He taketh away Ceremony and Sacrifice, that he may set up true piety, and that which is Religion indeed, which here is first termed That which is good in itself and for itself; which sacrifices and all other Ceremonious parts of God's worship were not. 2ly. Manifested and pointed out to as with a finger; Indicavit tibi, God by his Prophet hath showed it. 3ly. Published and promulged as a law: What doth the Lord require of thee? and lastly, charactered, and drawn out in its principal parts: 1. Justice and Honesty: 2ly. Mercy and Liberality. 3ly. Humility, and sincerity of mind, which is the Beauty and Glory of the rest, and commends tem; makes our Justice and Mercy shine in the full beauty of Holiness, when we are this, and do this, as with, or Before the Lord. He hath showed thee O man what is good, etc.  
These be the particulars: we begin with the first, That Piety and True Religion is here Termed Good, in itself and for itself, in opposition to the sacrifices and Ceremonies of the Law.  
And first, the Sacrifices, and Ceremonious part of God's worshp were good, but ex instituto, because God for some reason was pleased to institute and ordain them, otherwise in themselves they were neither good nor evil. They were, before they were enjoined; and men offered them up, 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Respons. ad orthod. in operib. Justini martyris. ad Interrog 83.  not in reference to any command, but out of a voluntary zeal and affection to the honour of God, which they expressed and showed forth in this especial act, in devoting that unto him, which was with them of highest esteem, as more due to the Giver of all things then to them for whose use they were given. God did not command, but did accept them for the zeal and affection of them who offered them up; and he tells them so himself, I speak not to your Fathers, nor commanded them in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning Burnt-offerings or sacrifice: But this thing I commanded them, saying, Obey my voice. Jerem. 7.22,23.  
Secondly, when they were commanded, they were commanded not for any real goodness there was naturally in them, (for what are Blood and smoke to the God of spirits?) but brought in for that good effect which the wisdom of God could work out of them, which had nothing of Good in them, nor which might commend them, but the end for which they were ordained. And therefore he commanded them, not as  in themselves, but by way of condescension, submitting himself, as it were, to the present infirmity and condition of the Jews, who were so strongly affected to this kind of worship; Populum pronum Idololatriae, ejusmodi officiis religioni suae voluit astringere, saith Tertullian; God put this command, 
Tertull●…d v. Martion. l. 2.  as it were a bridle into their mouths, who were too prone to run out beyond their limits; and that they might not offer unto Idols, he confines and ties them up, to do it to him alone.  
And so they were good, but ex comparatione, but by being compared with something that was worse: If they will sacrifice, it is better they sacrifice to God then to Devils; better do this then worse; better do that, which had it not been commanded, had been neither good nor evil, then that which is absolutely evil; better do that which God can bear with, then that which he hates; better they should be under the restraint and managing of an Indulgent hand, then that they should run into those abominations which a Father cannot pardon, and which will make a loving and tender God, a consuming fire. Thus they are Good being compared with something that is worse, and being put into the scales together, are valuable, because they outweigh them: Et quale est Bonum, quod mali comparatio commendat? saith Tertullian; what good is that, which were not so, if the evil which it shuts out, and with which it is compared, did not commend it.  
3. That which is good in itself and its own nature, is always so; piety and true Religion is older than the world, for it is a part and beam of that wisdom which was with God from Everlasting, and it shines forth from one end of the world to the other; hath the same splendour and brightness, when the fashion of the world changeth every day; and binds alike all the men in the world, and ends not but with it, and in its effects continues, when that shall be dissolved, even to all eternity: as it was breathed from God, and flows from his eternal law, so it is always the same, and remains the same, till it end in glory. For this there is no consummatum est, there is no end. The veil of the temple is rend in twain, the temple itself is buried in ruin, and not a stone left upon a stone; every Altar is thrown down, the sacrifices and Ceremonies abolished, but quicquid condidit virtus, coelum est, That which is truly good is as lasting as the heavens: heaven and earth may pass away, but not one tittle of this good shall fall to the ground.  
4. These Ceremonies were confined to time and place; you observe days and months, saith the Apostle, Gal. 4. yea and you obseve places too: you say, That Jerusalem is the place, saith the woman of Samaria to our Saviour, John 4. but that which is truly good, and in itself, is of that nature, that time and place have no power or influence on it, either to shrink it up and contract it, or to bond or circumscribe it, or to put a period to it, and cut it off. It is never out of season, never out of its place. Every day is the good man's holiday, and his sacrifice may be offered up at any time: It stays not for the new moon, or Sabbath day, but is res omnium horarum, may show and display itself at any day, in every hour of that day, and every minute of that hour. Ever yay, every hour, every minute is the good man's Sabbath and rest. And as it is not tied to time, no more is it to place: All the ends of the world shall remember the Lord, saith the Psalmist; and this good in the Text may be set up in any part of it. The Church is the place, and the Market is the place, and the Prison may be the place; piet as in plate is sibi secretum facit, Religion may build itself an oratory, a chapel in the midst of the streets, nay in a stews, in Sodom itself, (for there Lot was;) and 'tis the greatest commendation to be good amongst the worst.  
Last of all: This Ceremonious part of Religion was many times omitted, many times dispensed with; but this good which is here shown, admits no dispensation: Circumcision was dispensed with; sacrifice was dispensed with; the Sabbath was dispencsed with; but the true service of God was ever in force: who ever was dispensed with in a moral and positive law? who ever had this indulgence granted him to defraud or oppress his brother, to be cruel and unmerciful to him, or to walk contrary to his God? who ever was unjust on earth by a grant and prerogative from heaven? Aliud sunt imagines, aliud definitiones; Imagines prophetant, definitiones gubernant, 
Tertull. de manogamia. c. 6.  saith Tertullian. OUr lives are not regulated by Ceremonies, which pass away as a shadow, but by that law of God, which is indispensable: God himself hath dispensed with the one, but never with the other. When Sacrifices were omitted, and the Sabbath for some reasons was not observed, God complained not; we find that in a manner he doth disclaim Sacrifice, as in this place, and in the 1. of Isaiah, and in the 50. Psal. but where doth he hold a controversy with his people for omitting it? What Ceremony was there almost, which was not at some time, and upon some just occasion neglected? How many Easters? How many Jubilees do we read of? But that Good, which is the Rule of Life, is indispensable; No occasion must withdraw us, no place can bind us, no time hinder us, no necessity force us from it, ecause it requires o more than our will, which is the same in every place, and at every time, and is imputed to us as the Deed itself, when we cannot do it, when we have no tthat power which will-reach so far as to bring it into act. That which is good in itself 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, is so to every man, 
Greg. Naz. or. de. mort.  and at all times, and in every place; is like to him who is the ountain and Author of it, is so yesterday, and to day, and the same for ever.  
This Good then in the Text, may subsist in its full beauty and perfection, though no Altar smoke; but a Hecatomb, all the Beasts in the Forest offered up, Ten thousand rivers of oil, will not make up a just & merciful man. For it was observed even by some of the Jews themselves, That the greatest Sacrificers were most commonly the greatest Sinners, who conversing so much with shadows, and lost in the admiration of them, had no thought left empty enough to entertain the more substantial and harder parts of the Law, were so busy on the one, that they cast no look on the other; but in the strength of their Sacrifice, and a high conceit of this their formal worship, walked carelessly, and delicately over them, even to that which they forbade; So that to say, He is a true Israelite, becausehe is frequent at the Altar, is no better an Argument, then that which the Stoic so much derides, He hath a long Cloak and Beard, Therefore he is a great Philosopher: 
Arrian. Epictet. l. 4. c. 8.  For neither is Sacrifice the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the matter and business of the Israelite to which his profession binds him, but justice and mercy; nor a grave outside of a Philosopher, but Reason, and the End, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, as the Stoic calls it of the Israelite, is to do justice, and love mercy, as the Philosophers is in all his actions to make Reason his Rule. Cast but your eye back upon some former passages in this Prophecy, and you shall find that these Sacrificers were Idolaters, Chap. 1. That they were Oppressors, Chap. 2. That in the night they did study iniquity, and in the morning practice it: That they did covet Fields, and take them by violence; oppress a man and his house, even a man and his heritage, ver. 1, 2. That they were cruel, and bloody-minded; That they did eat the flesh of the people, and flay their skins from off them, Chap. 3. ver. 5. That they were unjust, and ignorant, and ungrateful in this Chapter, all which they did bear with ease, when they led their Sacrifice to the Altar, and there laid them to vanish aay with that smoke. It is a wonderful thing to observe, how soon and easily we are persuaded to think well of ourselves in our worst condition; how a form of Religion will secure us to tread it under our feet; how the doing that which is not good in itself, will lift us up and make us active and cheerful in doing that which is absolutely evil; how the nearer we come unto hell, the less we fear it; bring a sacrifice, set fire to your incense, bow the knee, call upon that God, whom you blaspheme, and there will then be no more conscience of sin. And therefore in this so great abuse, God is forced to give a check to his own command, and precisely to except against that Ceremony, that part of worship which himself for some reasons had enjoined: when their hands were full of blood, than Satur est, then is he also full, troubled and wearied with their  offerings, Es. 1.14. than he asks the Question by his Prophet; will I be pleased with thousands of Ram? that is, I will not. 
Tacitus 1. Nist  Incense is an abomination; he that killeth a bullock is as if he slew a man; he that sacrificeth a sheep as if he cut off a dog's neck. Es. 66. and that of the Historian proves true, plura peccant dum demerentur, quam dum offendunt, Their devotion is turned into sin; their Ceremonious diligence doth violate the majesty of God; They provoke him to wrath with their peace-offrings, and never offend him more, than when they worship him.  
We may then learn thus much from the Prophet's Question, That the Ceremonious part of God's worship, though enjoined by God, and performed most exactly by men, yet if it be not driven to that end, for which it was commanded, is so far from finding acceptance with God, that it is odious and hateful in his sight. For some Duties there are which are Relativi juris, which are commanded for some farther end, as Sacrifice, and Prayer, and Hearing, and Fasting, which if they end in themselves, are but smoke, but words, but noise, but shows; I may say, but sins. Others there are, that have their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, (as Aristotle speaks of sapience) their end in themselves, as denying ourselves, Crucifying the old man, Justice and mercifulness, and Humility; These are done for themselves, for they have no other end, unless it be glory. The first always have reference to the lasT, and if they come alone, or with no better a retinue then those sins and irregularities which they countenance, than God removes them, as he did the high places; cuts them down as he did the groves; looks upon them with the like detestation as he doth upon Idols; 
2 King. 18.4.  as he did upon the brazen serpent, when the people did burn Incense to it, which, though it was lifted up in the wilderness by his command, yet by his command it was pulled down and broken to pieces by Hezekiah, and made Nehushtan, a lump of brass.  
For 1. these outward performances of some part, and the easiest part of the law, were not done out of any love to the law or the Lawgiver. For love is of a quick and operative nature, and cannot rest in shows and formalities, but will draw them home to the end for which they were ordained: Love presents the gift, and the heart also, and (before he comes to the Altar) makes the worshipper himself a sacrifice. Love doth not stay at the porch, but enters the Holy of Holyes; doth not stay in the beginnings, but hasteth to the end; doth not contract the duty, but extends it to the utmost; doth not draw pictures, but men; doth not sacrifice the beast only, but offers and consumes us, binds us wholly to the work, forceth, and constrains us; never lets us rest, till we have fulfilled the will of him that commands; Improves sacrifice to obedience; hearing, to practice; fasting, to humility and repentance; Love may begin, but never ends in ceremony. And this is the reason why Religion hath so many professors, and so few friends; so many salutes, and so many contempts fling upon her; why she is so much spoke of, as the bird of Jupiter, that eagle which must carry us to heaven, but hath no more regard, than the sparrow on the house top or the owl in the desert; why it is so much talked of and so little practised; for men do not love it, but because it carries a kind of majesty and beauty along with it, and strikes every eye that beholds it; because men speak well of her in the gates, and we cannot but speak well of her, whilst we are men; therefore we are willing to give her a salute in the midst of all those horrid and hellish offices which are set up against her; we give her a bow and let her pass by, as if her shadow could cure us; or we lay hold on the skirts of her garment, touch and kiss them; are loud and busy in the performance of the easiest part of it; bind the sacrifice with cords to the horns of the Altar, but not our lusts and irregular desires, but let them fly to every object, every vanity; which is to sacrifice a beast to God, and ourselves to the devil.  
2. These formal worshippers do not only not love the command, but they do it for the love of something else: They love oppression, and blood, and injustice better than sacrifice; and all this heat and busy industry at the Altar proceeds not from that love which should be kindled and diffused in the heart, but as the unruly tongue, is set on fire by hell;; hath no other original, than an ungrounded, and unwarranted love of those profitable and honourable evils, which we have set up as our mark, but cannot so fairly reach to, if we stand in open defiance to all Religion. And therefore when that will not join with us, but looks a contrary way to that to which we are pressing forward with so much eagerness, we content ourselves with some part of it, with the weakest, with the poorest and beggerlyest part of it, and make use of it to go along with us, and countenance and secure us, in the doing of that which is opposite to it, and with which it cannot subsist; and so well and feelingly we act our parts, that we take ourselves to be great favourites, and in high grace with him whose laws we break; and so procure some rest and ease from those continual clamours, which our guiltiness would otherwise raise within us, and walk on with delight and boasting, and through this seeming, feigned paradise post on securely to the gates of death. In what triumphant measures doth a Pharisee go from the Altar? what a harmless thing is a cheat after a Sermon? what a sweet morsel is a widow's house after Long Prayers? what a piece of Justice is oppression after a fast? After so much Ceremony, the blood of Abel himself, of the justest man alive, hath no voice.  
For in the 3. place; These outward performances, this formality in Religion, have the same spring and motive with our greatest and foulest sins. The same cause produceth them, the same considerations promote them, and they are carried to their end on the same wings of our carnal desires. Do you not wonder that I should say, The formality and outward presentments of our devotion may have the same beginnings with our sins, may have their birth from the same womb; That they draw the same breasts, and like twins, are born, and nursed, and grow up together? doth a fountain send forth at the same place sweet water, and bitter? No; It cannot, but both these are salt and brinish; our sacrifice as ill smelling as our oppression, our fast as displeasing as our sacrilege: and our hearing and Prayers cry as loud for vengenace as our oppression. We sacrifice, that we may oppress; We fasT, that we may spoil our God; 
Ezek. 16.44.  and we pray, that we may devour our brethren: Like Mother, Like Daughter, saith the Prophet Ezekiel; They have the same evil beginning, and they are both evil: Ambition was the cause of Absoloms' Rebellion, and Ambition sent him to Hebron to pay his vow, 2 Sam. 15. Covetousness made Ahab and Jezebel murderers, and Covetousness proclaimed their fast, 1 King. 21. Lust made Shechem, the son of Hamor, a Ravisher, and lust made him a Proselyte and Circumcised him, Gen. 34. Covetousness made the Pharisee a Ravening wolf, and Covetousness clothed him in a lambs skin. Covetousness made his Corban, and Covetousness did disfigure his face, and placed him praying in the Synagogues, and the corner of the streets: Ex his causam accipiunt, quibus probantur, saith Tertullian; They have both the same cause; for the same motives arise and show them both; The same reason makes the same man both devout and wicked; both abstemious, and greedy; both meek and bloody; a seeming Saint, and a raging Devil; a Lamb to the eye, and a Roaring lion: Scit enim Diabolus alios continentiâ, alios libidine, occidere, saith the same Father, The devil hath an art to destroy us with the appearance of virtue, assoon as with the poison of sin.  
For in the fourth place; This formality in Religion stands in no opposition with him, or his designs, but rather advances his kingdom, and enlarges his dominion. For how many Sacrificers, how many attentive hearers, how many Beadsmen, how many Professors are his vassals? how many call upon God, Abba, Father, who are his children? how many openly renounce him, and yet love his wiles? 
Ex malitia ingenium habet. Tertull. de Idololat.  delight in his craft which is his malice? how many never think themselves at liberty, but when they are in his snare? and doth not a fair pretence make the fact fouler? doth not sacrifice raise the voice of our oppression, that it cries louder? doth not a form of Godliness make sin yet more finfull? when we talk of heaven, and love the world, are we not than most earthly, most sensual, most devilish? is the devil ever more devil, then when he is transformed into an Angel of light? And therefore the devil himself is a great promoter of this art of pargeting & painting, and makes use of that, which we call Religion, to make men more wicked; loves this foul and monstrous mixture of a Sacrificer and an Oppressor; of a Christian, and a Deceiver; of a Faster and a Bloodthirsty man: And as he was most enraged, and impatient, a● Tertullian tells us, to see the works of God brought into subjection under man, who was made according to his image; so is it his pride and glory to see man and Religion itself brought under these transitory things, & even made fervants and slaves unto them: O! to this hater of God and man, it is a kind of heaven in hell itself, and in the midst of all his torment, to see this man, whom God created and redeemed, to do him the greatest service in Christ's livery; to see him promote his Interest in the name of Christ and Religion; to see him under his power and dominion most, when he waits most diligently and officiously at the Altar of God. The Pharisee was his beloved disciple, when he was on his knees with a dissigured face: These Jews here were his disciples, who did run to the Altar, but not from their evil ways; who offered up the blood of beasts to God, and of the innocent to him; he that fasts and oppresses, is his disciple, for he gives God his body, and the Devil his soul: He that prays much, and cousin's more, is his disciples; for he doth but flatter God, and serves the enemy, speaks to a God of truth with his lips, but hearkens to the Father of lies and deceit. I may say the devil is the great Alchemist of the world to transelement the worst things, to make them more passable, to add a kind of esteem and glory to them. We do not meet with Counterfeit Iron or Copper, but gold and precious stones, these we sophisticate, and when we cannot dig them out of the mine, or take them from the rock, we strive to work them by art out of Iron, or Copper, or glass, and call them gold and diamonds. Thus doth the Devil raise and sublime the greatest impiety, and gild it over with a sacrifice, with a fast, with devotion, that it may appear in glory, and deceive, if it were possible, the very elect: we see too many deceived with it, who having no Religion themselves, are yet ready to bow down to its Image wheresoever they see it, and so fix their eye and devotion upon it, that they see not the thief, the oppressor, the Atheist, who carries it along with him, to destroy that of which it is the Image; but take it for that which it represents, as little children and fools take pictures and puppets for men. Is he unclean? who sees that, when he is at the Altar? doth he defraud his brother? who would say so, that should see him on his knees? hath he false weights and balances? It is impossible, for you may see him every day in the temple: are his feet swift to shed blood? It cannot be, for he fasteth often, behold how he hangs down his head like a bulrush. The vein of gold is deep in the earth, and we cannot reach it but with sweat and industry: true piety and that which is good is a more rare and precious thing than gold, and the veins of it lie deep; its original is from heaven in Christ, at a huge distance from our carnal desires and lusts, and so requires great anxiety, strong contention, and mighty strive to reconcile it to our wills. This pearl is as it were in a far country, and we must sell all to purchase it; the whole man must lose, and deny itself to search and find it out; we must lay down all that we have, our understandings, our wills and affections at his feet that sells it: And therefore that we may not trouble, nor excruciate ourselves too much, that we may not ascend into heaven, or go down into hell for it, that we may not undergo so much labour, and endure so much torment in attaining it, e take a shorter way, and work and fashion something like unto it, which is most contrary to it, and transelement impiety itself, and shadow it over with devotion, and publish it to others, and say within ourselves, this is it. For what Seneca said of Philosophy is true of Religion, Adeo res sacra est, ut siquid illi simile sit, etiam mendacium placeat, It is so sacred and venerable a thing, that we are pleased with its resemblance, and that shall soon have its name that hath but its likeness; that shall be the true pearl, which is but counterfeit; and by this means all Religion is confined to the Altar, and that shall consecrate that which is not good, and make it appear so. That piety which came from the bosom of the Father, and was conveyed to us by the wisdom of the Son, must be shut up in outward worship, in formality, and Ceremony, and show, and that which quite destroys it, and tramples it under our feet; must go under that name, and make us great on earth, though it make us the least in the kingdom of heaven, so that we shall have no place there, but be tumbled down into the lowest pit. As the Prophet Isaiah speaks in his first chapter; Argentum nostrum versum est in scoriam, our silver is become dross, our wine is mixed with water, nay our best silver, our most refined actions are dross; our wine is gall and bitterness, or as he speaks in another place c. 30. all our Righteousness (and he means such formal, counterfeit righteousness,) is as a menstruous cloth.  
Again in the last place: This formality, and insincerity is most opposite to God, who is a God of truth, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, unissimus, a most single and uncompounded essence, with whom there is no variableness, nor shadow of changing, saith Saint James; no mixture nor composition of divers or contrary things: His justice doth not thwart his mercy, nor his mercy disarm his justice; his providence doth not bind his power, nor his power check his providence; what he is he always is, like unto himself in all his ways. Tertullian gives him these two proprieties, 
Tert. de Bapt. c. 2.  simplicitatem & potestatem, simplicity or uncompoundednesse, and power: He is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the singleness of all that are of a pure and single heart; 
Dionrs. de Divin. Nomin.  and hence the strictest Christians in the first times were called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, saith the Father, viri singulares, men that were one in themselves, & of a single heart; who did strive and press forward as far as mortality and their frail condition would suffer them, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to the divine unity, to be one in themselves, as God is ever most one, and unity itself. For God who gave us our soul, looks that we should restore it to him, one and entire; not contemplating heaven, and wallowing in the mire; not feeding on Ceremony, and loathing of purity; not busy at the Altar, and more busy in the world. The Civilians will tell us, dicitur res non reddita, quae deterior redditur, That cannot be said to be restored, which is returned worse than it was, when it was first put into our hands: and what can accrue to a soul by sacrifice, by Ceremony, by any outward formality, if it receive no deeper impressions than these can make? if we return it back to him with nothing but words, and noise and shows, in the posture of a bragging coward with his scarves and ribbons, and big words, and glorious lies? with no better hatchments than these, we return it far worse than we received it, worse than it was when it was as a smooth unwritten table, when it was such a soul, qualem habent qui solam habent, such a one which they have, 
Tertull. de Testim. anim.  who have it only as other creatures have, to keep them alive and in being, and no more; and better we had breathed it out when it was first breathed in, then that we should thus keep and retain it, and then return it with no better furniture, no better endowed and filled, then with shadows and lies. That which adorns, and betters a soul, and makes it fit to be returned, must be as spiritual as itself; Self-denial, Sincerity, and Honesty, love of mercy, humility; these are the riches and glories of a soul, which must make it fit to be presented back again into the hands of its Creator. For these, for the advancement of these, were all outward Ceremony and Formality ordained, and without these sacrifice is an abomination, and the Brownists calumny or rather blasphemy will be a truth, our preaching will be but Preachments; our time of preaching but disputing to an hourglass; our Pulpits prescript places; our solemn fasts but stage plays, wherein one acts sin, another Judgement, a third Repentance, and a fourth the Gospel; and the blessed Sacrament will be but as a two-peny-feasT. Or, which is worse, our outward formality and busy diligence in those duties which require the least, will but serve Contenebrare incesta, as the Father speaks, 
Tertull. Apol.  to cast a mist and darkness upon our impurities, which may hid them from our own eyes, whom it most concerns to see them, and for a while from others, who see the best of us (which indeed is the worst of us, because it makes us worse and worse) whilst the evil they shadow and hid, is in our very bowels, and spreads itself, and works on insensibly, but most strongly and certainly to our ruin; and than it appears more ugly and deformed to his pure and all-seeing eye, who never hates an oppressor more than when he sees him at the Altat, and is most offended with that fraudulent man, who is called Christian. We read in the Historian, when Nero had but set his foot into the temple of Vesta, he fell into a fit of trembling, facinorum recordatione, saith Tacitus, being shaken with the remembrance of his monstrous crimes; for what should he do in the temple of Vesta, who had defiled his own mother? And how shall we dare to enter God's courts, unless we leave our sins behind us? how dare we speak to a God of truth, who defraud so many? why should we fast from meat, who make our brethren our meat, and eat them up? at that great day of separation of true and false worshippers, when he shall bespeak those on his right hand, Come ye llessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you; The form or reason is not, for you have sacrificed often, you have fasted often, you have heard much, you were frequent in the temple; and yet these are holy duties, but they are ordinata ad aliud, they were ordained for those that follow, and therefore are not mentioned, but in them employed: For I was hungry, and you gave me meat; I was thirsty, and you gave me drink; I was naked, and you clothed me; sick and in prison, and you visited me. Then outward worship hath its glory and reward, when it draws the inward along with it; then the sacrifice hath a sweet-smelling savour, when a just and merciful man offers it up; when I sacrifice and obey, hear and do, pray and endeavour, contemplate and practice, fast and repent: and thus we are made one, fit to be looked upon by him who is Oneness itself, not divided betwixt sacrifice and oppression; a form of godliness, and an habitual course in sin; a dissembling with God, and fight against him; betwixt an Hosanna and a Crucifige, a professing Christ, and Crucifing him. In this unnity and conjunction every duty and virtue, as the stars in the firmament, have their several glory, and they make the Israelite, the Christian, a child of light: but if we divide them, or set up some few for all; the easiest and those which are most attempered to the sense, for those which fight against it; and bring in them for the main, which by themselves are nothing; if all must be sacrifice, if all must be Ceremony and outward formality; if this be the conclusion and sum of the whole matter, If this be the body of our worship and Religion; then instead of a blessing and an Euge, we shall meet with a frown and a check; and God will question us for appearing before him in strange apparel, which he never put upon us; question us for doing his command, and tell us he never gave any such command, because he gave it not to this end: will he be pleased with  offerings? with Ceremony, and formality? he asks the question with some indignation, and therefore 'tis plain he will not, but loathes the sacrifice, as he doth the oppressor, and unclean person that brings it.  
We see then (that we may yet draw it nearer to us) that there was good reason why God should thus disclaim his own ordinance, because he made it for their sakes, and to an end quite contrary to that, to which the Jew carried it; we see the Prophet might well set so low an esteem upon so many thousand rams, because Idolaters, and oppressors, and cruel bloodthirsty men offered them. We see Sacrifice and all out ward Ceremony and formality are but as the garment or shadow of Religion, which is turned into a disguise, when she wears it not; and is nothing, is a delusion, when it doth not follow her. For oppression and sacrilege may put on the same garment; and the greatest evil that is, may cast Wuch a shadow. He that hates God may sacrifice to him; he that blasphemes him, may praise him; The hand that strips the poor may put fire to the incense, and the feet that are so swift to shed blood, may carry us into the Temple. When all is Ceremony, all is vain, nay lighter than vanity; for in this we do not worship God, but mock him; give him the skin, when he looks for the heart; we give him shadows for substances, and shows for realities, and leaves for fruit; and we mortify our lusts and affections, as Tragedians die upon the Stage, and are the same sinners we were, as wicked as ever. Our Religion puts forth no thing but blossoms, or if it knit, and make some show or hope of fruit, it is but as we see it in some Trees, it shoots forth at length, and into a larger proportion and bigness, then if it had had its natural concoction, and ripened kindly, and then it hath no taste or relish, but withers, and rots, and falls off. And thus when we too much dote on Ceremomy, we neglect the main work, and when we neglect the work, we fly to Ceremony and formality, and lay hold on the Altar; we deal with our God, 
Clem. Alexande. 3. storm.  as Aristotle of Cyrene did with Lais, who promised to bring her back again into her country, if she would help him against his Adversaries whom he was to contend with; and when that was done, to make good his oath, drew her picture as like her as art could make it, and carried that; and we fight against the devil, as Darius did against Alexander, with pomp, and gayetry, and gilded armour, as his prey, rather than his enemies; and thus we walk in a vain shadow, and trouble ourselves in vain, and in this Region of shows and shadows dream of happiness, and are miserable; of heaven, and fall a contrary way, as Julius Caesar dreamed that he soared up, 
Suet. Vit. C. Caesar.  and was carried above the clouds, and took Jupiter by the right hand, and the next day was slain in the Senate-house.  
I will not accuse the foregoing Ages of the Church, because as they were loud for the Ceremonious part of God's worship, so were they as sincere in it, and did worship him in spirit and truth, and were equally zealous in them both; and though they raised the first to a great height, yet never suffered it so to over-top the other, as to put out its light; but were, what their outward expressions spoke them, as full of Piety as Ceremony; and yet we see that high esteem which they had of the Sacraments of the Church, led some of them upon those errors, which they could not well quit themselves of, but by falling into worse. It is on all hands agreed, that they are not absolutely necessary, not so necessary as the mortifying and denying of ourselves, not so necessary as Actual holiness. It is not absolutely necessary to be baptised; for many have not passed that Jordan, yet have been saved; but it is necessary to have the Laver of Regeneration, and to cleanse ourselves from sin. It is not absolutely necessary to eat the Bread, and drink the Wine in the Sacrament of the Lords Supper; for some cross accident may intervene, and put me by; but it is necessary to feed on the Bread of Life, as necessary as my meat, to do Gods will. True Piety is absolutely necessary, because none can hinder me from that, but myself; but it is not always in every man's power to bring himself to the Font, or approach the Lords Table; All that can be said, is, That when they may be had, they are absolutely necessary; but they are therefore not absolutely necessary, because they cannot always be had; and when they stretched beyond this, they stretched beyond their line, and lost themselves in an ungrounded, and unwarranted admiration of these Ordinances, which (whilst we look upon them in their proper Orb and Compass) can never have honour and esteem enough. They put the Communion into the mouths of Infants, who had but now their Being; and into the mouths of the Dead, who had indeed a BEing, but not such a Being as to be fit Communicants; and Saint Austin thought Baptism of Infants so absolutely necessary, that Not to be baptised, was to be Damned, and therefore was forced also to create a new Hell that was never before heard of, and to find out mitem damnationem, a more mild and easy damnation, more fit, as he thought, for the tenderness and innocency of Infants.  
Now this was but an error in speculation, the error of devout and pious men, who in honour to the Author of the Sacraments, made them more binding and necessAry than they were; and we may learn thus much by this overgreat esteem the first and best Christians, and the most learned amongst them, had of them; that there is more certainly due, then hath been given in these latter times, by men who have learned to despise all Learning, and whose great devotion it is to quarrel and cry down all Devotion: who can find no way to gain the reputation of Wisdom, but by the fierce and loud impugning of that which hath been practised and commended to succeeding Ages by the wisest in their Generation; by men who first cry down the Determinations of the Church, and then in a scornful and profane pride and animosity deny there is any such Collection, or Body, as a Church at all.  
But our Errors in Practice are more dangerous, more spreading, more universal. For what is our esteem of the Sacraments? more a great deal then theirs, and yet less, because 'tis such which we should not give them, even such, which they, whom they are so bold to Censure, would have Anathematised. We Think, or Act as if we did, that the Water of Baptism doth cleanse us, though we make ourselves more Leopards, fuller of spots then before: That the Bread in the Eucharist will nourish us up to eternal life, though we feed on husks in all the remainder of our days. We baptise our children, and promise and voew for them, and then instill those thriving and worldly principles into them, which null and cancel the vow we made at the Font: hither we bring them to renounce the world, and at home teach them to love it. And for the Lords Supper, what is commonly our preparation? A Sermon, a few hours of meditation, a seeming farewell to our common affairs, a faint heaving at the heart that will not be lifted up, a sad and demure countenance at the time; and the next day, nay before the next day this mist is shaken off, and we are ready to give Mammon a salute, and a cheerful countenance, the world our service, to drudge and toil as that shall lead us, to rail as loud, to revenge as maliciously, to wanton it as sportfully, to cheat as kindly as ever we did long before, when we never so much as thought of a Sacrament. And shall we now place all Religion, nay any Religion in this? or call that good, that absolutely good and necessary, for which we are the worse, absolutely the worse every day? Well may God ask the question, Will he be pleased with this? Well may he by one Prophet ask, who hath required it? and by another instruct us, and show us yet a more excellent way.  
It was not the error of the Jew alone to forget true and inward sanctity, and to trust upon outward worship and formality; but sad experience hath taught us, that the same error which misled the Jew under his weak and beggarly Elements, hath in the fullness of time found admittance and harbour in the breasts of Christians uneer that perfect Law of Liberty, in which the grace of God hath appeared unto all men. I am unwilling to make the parallel; it carries with it some probability that some of them had that gross conceit of God, that he fed on the flesh of bulls, and drunk the blood of goats; for God himself stands up and denies it in the fiftieth Psalm, will I eat the flesh of bulls, and drink the blood of goats? If I be hungry, I will not tell thee: if there were not such conceit, why doth God thus expostulate? And is there no symptom, no indication of this disease in us? do we not believe that God delights in these pageants and formalities? That he better likes the devotion of the ear, then of the heart? do we not measure out our devotion rather by the many Sermons which we have heard, than the many alms we have given? or which is better, the many evil thoughts which we have stifled, the many unruly desires we have suppressed, the many passions we have subdued, the many temptations which we have conquered? Hath not this been our Arithmetic, to cast vup our accounts, not by the many good deeds we have done, which may stand for figures or numbers; but by the many reproaches we have given to the times, the many bitter Censures we have passed upon men better than ourselves; the many Sermons we have heard, which many times (God knows) are no better than Ciphers, and by themselves signify no more? Do we not please ourselves with these thoughts, and lift ourselves up into the third heaven? Do we not think, that God is well pleased with these thoughts? Do we not believe they are sacrifices of a sweet-smelling favour unto him? And what is this less, then to think that God will eat the flesh of bulls, and drink the blood of goats? nay may it not seem far worse, to think that God is fed and delighted with our formalities, which are but lies, and that he is in love with our hypocrisy? I may be bold to say, as gross an error and as opposite to the wisdom of God, as the other. It is truly said, multa non illicita vitiat animus, That the mind and intention of man may draw an obliquity on those actions which in themselves are lawful; nay multa mandata vitiat, It may make that unlawful, which is commanded. O! 'tis a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God; but how fearful is it to have his hand fall upon us, when we stan that his Altar? to see him frown and hear him thunder, when we worship him; in anger to question us, when we are doing our duty? What a dart would it be to pierce our souls through and through, if God should now send a Prophet to us, to tell us, That our frequenting the Church, and coming to his Table, are distasteful to him; That our fasts are not such as he hath chosen, and that he hates them as much as he doth our oppression and cruelty, to which they may be as the prologue; that he will have none of the one, because he will have none of the other? and yet if we terminate Religion in these outward formalities, or make them wait upon our lusts, to bring them with more smoothness, with more state and pomp, and applause to their end, to that which they look so earnestly upon; if we thus appear before him, he that shall tell us as much of our hearing, and fasting, and frequenting the Church, shall be as a true Prophet as Micah the Morasthite was.  
And now to conclude; If you ask me, wherewith shall you come before the Lord, and bow yourselves before the most High? Look further into the Text, and there you have a full and complete directory; Do Justly, Love Mercy, and walk humbly with your God; with these you may approach his Courts, and appear at his Altar. In aram dei Justitia imponitur, saith Lactantius, Justice, and mercy, and sincerity are the best and fittest sacrifices for the Altar of God, 
Lactan●. de vere cultu. l 6. c. 24.  which is the heart of man; an Altar, that must not be polluted with blood: Hoc qui exhibet, toties sacrificat, quoties bonum aliquid aut pium facit, The man that is just and merciful doth sacrifice, as oft as he doth any just and merciful act. Come then and appear before him, and offer up these; nor need you fear that ridiculous and ungodly imputation, which presents you to the world under the name of mere moral men: Bear it as your Crown of Rejoicing; It is stigma Jesus Christi, a mark of Christ Jesus; and none will lay it upon you as a defect, but they who are not patiented of any loss but of their honesty: who have learned an art to join together in one the Saint and the deceiver; who can draw down heave to them with a thought, and yet supplant, and overreath their brother as cunningly as the devil doth them. Bonus vir Caius Seius, 
Tertull. Apolog.  Caius Seius is a good man; his only fault is that he is a Christian, would the heathen say; He is a good moral man, but he is not of the Elect, that is, one of our Faction, saith one Christian of another. I much wonder, how long a good moral man hath been such a monster. What is the decalogue, but an abridgement of morality? what is Christ's Sermon on the mount, but an improvement of that? and shall civil and honest conversation be the mark of a reprobate? Shall nature bring forth a Regulus, a Cato, a Fabricius, Just and Honest men, and shall Grace and the Gospel of Christ bring forth nothing but zanies, but players and actors of Religion, but Pharisees and hypocrites? or was the new creature, the Christian, raised up to thrust the moral man out of the world? Must all be election and regeneration? Must all Religion be carried along in phrases and words, and noise; and must Justice and Mercy be exposed as monsters, and fling out into a land of oblivion? Or how can they be elect and regenerate, who are not just and merciful? No: the moral man that keeps the commandments is not far from the kingdom of God; and he that is a Christian, and builds up his morality, Justice and Mercy, upon his faith in Christ; he that keeps a good conscience, and doth to others what he would that others should do unto him, shall enter in and have a mansion there, when these speculative and Seraphic Hypocrites, who decree for God, and preordain there a place for themselves, shall be shut out of doors.  
Come then and appear before him with these, with Innocence, and Integrity, and mercifulness Wash your hands in Innocency, and compass his Altar. For Christ hath made us Priests unto his Father, Rev. 1.6. there is our Ordination: To offer up spiritual sacrifice, 1 Pet. 2.5. there is our duty and performance: By Jesus Christ, there is our seal to make good and sure our acceptance. chrysostom, besides that great Sacrifice of the Cross, hath found out many more; 
Chrysost. in. Ps. 5●.  Martyrdom, Prayer, Justice, Alms, Praise, Compunction and Humility; and he brings into the preaching of the World, which all make 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, 
Basil. ep. 87.  saith Basil, a most magnificent and precious sacrifice. We need not cull out any more than these in the Text; for in offering up these, we shall find the true nature and reason of a Sacrifice observed. For to make any thing a true Sacrifice, there must be a plain and expressed change of the thing that is offered. It was a Bull or a Ram, but it is set apart and consecrate to God; and it is a Sacrifice, and must be slain. And this is remarkable in all these, in which though no Death befall us, (as in the Beast offered in Sacrifice) but that Death (which is our Life) our death to sin; yet a change there is, which being made to the honour of God's Majesty, is very pleasing and acceptable in his sight. When we do justly, we have slain the Beast, the worst part of us, our love of the world, our filthy lusts, our covetousness and ambition, which are the life and soul of fraud, and violence, and oppression, by which they live, and move, and have their being. When we offer up our Goods, there is a change; For how strong is our affection to them? how do we adore them as Gods? are they not in common esteem as our life and blood? and do we not as willingly part with our breath as with our wealth? Now he that doth good and distribute, he that scatters his wealth, pours forth his very blood; binds the sacrifice with cords to the horns of the Altar, let's out all worldly desires with his wealth, and hath slain that sacrifice, saith Saint Paul, with which God is well pleased.  
And last of all, Humility wastes and consumes us to nothing; makes us an Holocaust, a whole burnt-offering, Nothing in ourselves, nothing in respect of God; and in htis our Exinanition, exalts all the graces of God in us, fills us with life and glory, with high apprehensions, with lively anticipations of that which is not seen, but laid up for us in the Treasuries of heaven. These are the Good man's sacrifice, and they naturally flow from this Good which is here showed in the Text, and are the parts of it. These were from the beginning and shall never be abolished; and if we offer up these, we shall never be questioned, nor asked, will God be pleased with these? for he is pleased only with these, and for these, with whatsoever we offer; and he will love us for them, and accept us in him, who to sanctify and present these, offered himself an offering, a sacrifice of a sweet-smelling savour; even Jesus Christ the righteous, who is a Priest for ever after the order of Melchizedeck.  
Thus have we taken a view of this Good which is shown in the Text, as it stands in opposition with the Sacrifices of the Law, and outward formality; and now the vail is drawn, we shall present it in its full beauty and perfection in our next.    

 blazon or royal coat of arms of England and Wales HONI ●…T QVI MAL Y PENSE  
The Two and Twentieth SERMON.  

PART II.  MICAH 6.8. 
He hath showed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?  
WE have showed you, That Piety is termed Good in itself, in opposition to Sacrifice, and the ceremonies of the law, which were but ex instituto, for some reasons instituted and ordained, but in themselves were neither Good nor Evil. We might now take a view of this Good, as it stands in opposition to the things of this world, which either our Luxury, or Pride, or Covetousness have raised in their esteem, and above their worth, and called Good, as the heathens consecrated their affections, their diseases, their very vices, and placed them in the number of their Gods. For Good is that which all desire, which all bow and stoop to, but yet it hath as several shapes, as there be opinions and constitutions of men; and all the mistake is in our choice, that we set up something to look upon, which is not worth a glance of our eye: That we call Evil, Good; and that Good, which is neither evil, nor good, but may make us so; Good if we use it well, and Evil, if we abuse it. (Non est bonum, quo uti malè possis, and that cannot be truly and in itself good, 
Sense. ep. 20.  which we may use to an evil end, saith Seneca) that we propose to ourselves objects which are attended with danger, and very often with horror, and give to them this glorious title; paint out of ourselves some deformed strumpet, and call her a goddess, and kiss the lips of that which will by't like a Cockatrice. Good we desire, and when our desires have run to that which we set up for good, we meet with nothing but evil, which shows not itself till it be felt; we hoist up our sails and make towards it, and are swallowed up in that Sea as Austin calls it, of the good things of this world, which we thought mighty carry us to the end of our hope; we take it for bread, and in our mouth 'tis gravel; we took it for pleasure, and when we tasted it, it was gall; we hunt after riches, as Good, and they beggar us; climb to honour, and that breaks our neck; and though we swallow down these good things, as the Ox doth water, yet we are never full. Saint Hilary in his comments on the first Psalm having observed, that some there were who drew down all their interpretations of that book respectively to spiritual things and God himself, because they thought it some disparagement to that book, that terrene and secular matter should so often interline itself; yet passeth on them no heavier censure than this, haec corum opinio argui non potest, etc. We need not be so severe as to condemn this opinion of theirs, because it proceeds from a mind piously and Religiously affected; and it is a thing which deserves rather commendation then blame, by a favourable endeavour to strive to apply all things to him by whom all things were made. For these things are not Good, but only go under this deputative and borrowed title: The world hath cried them up, but the scripture hath no such name for them; it is Good to praise the Lord, nay 'tis Good to be afflicted, this we read; but where do we read, It is good to be rich; It is good to be honourable; It is good to go in purple, and far deliciously every day? we find many curses and woes sent after them, but we never find them graced with the title of good. Thou hast received thy good things, faith Abraham to Dives; 
Luk. 16.27.  Good things but, Thine, such as thy lusts esteemed so; thy good things, and such good things, which have helped to hurry thee to this place of torment. Good they are not, for they are so far from making a man good, that they make him him not rich: Look upon Dives at his feast, and Lazarus at his gates, and which was the rich man? If I should say Lazarus, it were no Paradox, for Dives had nothing of a rich man but his name.  
Good then they are no tin themselves, nor can they be, but by being subservient to this Good in the Text; and therefore we must make another defalcation of these Temporal goods, as we did of those Sacrifices which were but temporary: Down must Sacrifice and down must Mammon; down must his temple and his groves, and no picture, no representation must be left of them in our minds; but let us look upon Sacrifice and Formality, as shadows, and the things of this world as less than shadows, and then upon the ruins of hypocrisy, and covetousness, and ambition, to build up a temple to true piety and religion, and that which is called Good here in the Text, which God by his Prophet hath laid open before our eyes: For he hath showed thee, O man, not Sacrifice, not the glory of the world, that's the devil's show, Math. 4. but he hath showed thee what is good.  
And now having drawn the veil, we may enter the Sanctum Sanctorum, the holy of holies, and behold piety, and that which is good; that good, which is so in itself, real and eternal, quod nec invitus accipis, nec invitus amittis, which thou neither receivest nor losest but when thou wilt, as thou mayest thy possessions, 
Agustin. Ser. 12. in Matth.  thy honours, nay thy body and life itself, which all may be taken from thee against thy will; that good, which is a defluxion and emanation from God himself, derived and flowing from that wisdom which dwelled with him from all eternity; that good, which will make us good here, and raise us up to be eternal with him in the highest heavens; that good, which will give us an heavenly understanding, a divine will, angelical affections, and in a manner incorporate us with God himself.  
And if you please to look upon it in its perfection of beauty; you may consider it, 1. as fitted and proportioned to our very nature. 2ly. as fitted to all sorts and conditions of men. 3ly. as lovely and amiable in the eyes of all. 4ly. as filling and satisfing us. 5ly. as giving a relish, and sweet taste to the worst of evils which may befall us, whilst with love and admiration we look upon it; and making those things of the world, which are not good in themselves, useful, and good, and advantageous to us. This is the object which is here set up, and it is a fair one, and man is called to be the spectator, he hath showed thee, O man! and if he look 'pon it with astedfast and single eye, with affection and love, it will make him dignum Deo spectaculum, an object fit for the angels and God himself to look upon; for, 1. it is fitted to him. 2ly. it is opened and made manifest, placed before his eye: Jndicavit tibi, he hath showed thee it. Last of all, it is required of him; for what else doth he require? 1. It is proper for him. 2ly. is is displayed and laid open before him. 3ly. It is a Law to bind him. He hath showed thee O man, what is Good; and what doth the Lord require?  
And first, we cannot doubt but God built up man for this end alone, for this Good; to communicate his goodness, to make him partaker of a divine nature, to make him a kind of God upon the earth, to imprint his image upon him, by which according to his measure and capacity he might express and represent God. 1. by the knowledge not only of natural and transitory, but those things which pertain to everlasting life, as it is Coloss. 3.10. being renewed in knowledge, after the image of him that created him. 2ly. in the rectitude and Sanctity of his will: Ephs. 4.24. putting on that new man, which after God is created in righteousness and holiness. And 3ly. in the free and ready obedience of the outward parts, and inward faculties, to the beck and command of God; which being divine, a breathing from God himself, cannot but look forward, and look upward upon its original; and so teach us to be just, as God is righteous in all his ways; to be merciful, as he is merciful; and to walk humbly before him, who hath thus built us up out of the dust, but to eternity. I say, God hath imprinted this image on man, and what communion can God have with evil? what relation hath an immortal essence to that which passeth away, changeth every day, and at last is not? 1 Cor. 7.31. Take man for the miracle of the world, as Trismegistus calls him, that other, that lesser world, the tye and bond of all the other parts, which were made for his sake, and what conversation should he have, but in heaven? what should he look upon, but that which is Good? Or take him as made after God's image, as having that property which no other creature hath, to understand, to will, to Reason and determine, by which he was made capable of good, and made to be partaker of it; and we cannot think he had an understanding given him only to forge deceit, and contrive plots; to find out a twilight, an opportunity to do mischief; to invent new delights, to make an art of pleasure; and draw out a method and Law of wickedness; That, that which was given him as his counsellor in relation to this good, should be his purveyor in the works of the flesh, and no better than a pander to his lust: 
Illud mirum, mal●s esse tam multos; nam ut aqua piscibus, circumfusus nobis spiritus volucribus convenit: It a certè facilius esse oportebat secundum naturam, quàm contra eam vivere. Quint. l. 12. Instit. orat. c. 11.  we cannot think that he had a will given him, to embrace shadows and apparitions, which play with our fancy and deceive us; to wait upon the flesh which fights against the spirit, and this image within us: we cannot think he had reason given to distinguish him from the other creatures, to make him worse than they; This cannot be the thought of a man, whilst he remains so; a man who is form, and fitted, & fashioned only for that which is good; which consideration made Quintilian himself, a heathen, to pronounce, that it was as natural for man to be good, as for the birds to fly, or fishes to swim; because man was made for the one● as the birds and fishes were for the other.  
Secondly, there is no proportion at all between any corporeal and sensual thing, and the soul of man, which is a spirit, and immortal, and so resembles that God which breathed it into us. For as Lactantius said, God is not hungry, that you need set him meat, nor thirsty, that you should pour out drink unto him; he is not in the dark, that you need light up candles; And what is beauty, what is the wedg of gold to the soul? The one is from the earth earthy, the other is from the Lord of heaven. The world is the Lords, and the world is the souls, and all that therein is; and to behold the creature, and in the world, as in a book, to study and find out the Creator; to contemplate his majesty, his goodness, his wisdom; and to discover that happiness which is prepared for it; to behold the heavens, the works of God's hand, and purchase a place there; to converse with Seraphim and Cherubin; This is the proper act of the soul for which it was made; this, this alone was proportioned to it. And herein consists the excellency, and very essence of Religion, and the Good which is here showed us; in exalting the soul, in drawing it back from mixing with the creature, and in bringing it into subjection under God, the first and only good; in uniting it to its proper object; in making that which was the breath of God, breath nothing but God; the soul being as the matter, and this Good here, that is piety and religion, the form; the soul being 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 (for so Plato calls matter) the receptacle of this Good, as the matter is of the form, and never right, and of a persect being, till it receive it; this good being as the seed, and the soul the ground, Math. 13. the matrix, and the womb; and there is a kind of sympathy, between this good, this immortal seed, and the heart and mind of man, as there is between seed, and the womb of the earth: for the soul no sooner sees it unclouded, unvailed, not disguised and made terrible by the intervention of things not truly good, but upon a full manifestation, she is taken, as the bridegroom in the Canticles, with its eye, and beauty. Heaven is a fair sight, even in their eyes who tend to destruction; so that there is a kind of nearness and alliance between this good, and those notions and principles which God imprinted in us at the first. And therefore even nature itself had a glimpse, a weak, imperfect sight of this good, and saw a further mark to aim at, than this world in this span of time could set up, 
Tertull. 2. de Finib.  whence Tully calls man a mortal God: and Seneca tells us, That, by that which is best in man we go before other creatures, 
Sen. ep. 76. In homine quid optimum●ratio: hac antecedit animalia, deos sequitur.  but follow to join with that which is truly good, by which we may be carried along to the fountain of good, even God himself.  
For again; as this good here, that is, piety and religion, bear a sympathy and correspondence with the mind of man, so hath the soul of man 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a formative quality, a power to shape and fashion it, and by the sweet influence, and kindly aspect of God's quickening grace, to bring forth something of the same nature, some heavenly creature; the new man, which is made up in holiness and righteousness, in Justice, and mercy, and humility, which are the good in the text; the beauty of which may beget and raise up that violence in us, which may break open the gates of heaven; beget a congregation of Saints, of just and honest men, a numerous posterity to Abraham of hospital and merciful men; and an army of martyrs, which shall in all humility lay down their lives for his sake that gave them, and forsake all, to join and adhere to this Good.  
And now in the second place, as it is fitted and proportioned to the soul of man, so is it to every soul of man, to all sorts and conditions of men; it is fitted to the Jew; and to the Gentile; to the bond, and to the free, to the rich, and to the poor; to the scribe, and to the Idiot; to the young, and to the aged; no man so much a Jew, no man such a bored slave, no man such a Lazar, none so dull and slow of understanding, no such Barzillai, which may not receive it. Freedom and slavery, circumcision and uncircumcision, riches and poverty, quickness and slowness of understanding in respect of this Good, of Piety and Religion, are all alike. Religion is no peculiar, but the most common, the most communicative thing that is. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, etc. The Law, the Prophets, 
Naz. Orat. 26.  the Oracles, Grace, Faith, Hope, and Charity, these, saith Nazianzen, 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 etc. Ib.  are common to all, as common as the Sun; are the goods and possessions 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, not of the mightiest, or the wisest, but of those who are willing to receive them. Nor were there any thing more unjust than our Faith and Religion, (saith he) if it were entailed only on some few; if God, whose Property, whose Nature it is to do Good, should dispense that Good most sparingly, which doth most please him; if he should shut it up, as he doth Gold and other Metals, in the bowels of the earth and seal a patent but to some few, to find and dig it out; if it should be left, as the things of this world are, in the uncertain and inequal hand of Chance; or looking alike on all, should withdraw, and hid itself from the most, or be unatchievable, not to be attained to by some, when it is bound up as it were in the bosom of others. No; the most excellent things are most common, and offered and presented to all: nothing is so common as this good, and when other things fly from us, and as we follow after them, remove themselves farther off, and mock our endeavours, this is always near us, shines upon us, invites and solicits us to take it for our guide, which will lead us in a certain and unerring course, through the false shows and deceitfulness of this world, through blackness and darkness, to the end for which we were made. This Good is every man's good, that will; as Aquinas is said to have replied to his sister, when she asked him, how she might be saved; si velis, if you are willing you may: every covetous person is not rich; every ambitious man hath not the highest place; every student is not a great clerk; but piety opens the gate to every man that knocks, and he that will, enters in and takes possession of her; Fastidiosior est scientia quàm virtus; paucorum est ut literati sint, omnium ut bonì: That which is best, is most accessable; and when other things, 
Petrarch. l. 7. Re. Fam. open 17.  knowledge, and wealth, and honour, are coy, and keep a distance, and when we have them, are desultorious, and ready in the midst of all our joy & pride to leave us, and leave us nothing but a heavy heart, and dropping eye to look after them; this good is ever before us, and never removes itself, till we chase it away; is ever with us, if we will; and if we will, as the father in the Gospel tells the elder Son, we may be ever with it, and all that it hath is ours. In a word, It is most kind, most beneficial, when most profess it; It is not leapt up in the ephod, as belonging to the priest alone, for it was not showed to him alone, nor was it required of him alone; every branch and part of it concerns you who are to be taught, as much as them that are set over you in the Lord, to teach you; the people are bound to be as holy as the priest, and they are both to pass the same narrow way; nor are the gates of heaven so made that they will fly open to the people, but must be beat upon with violence by the priest; that he must bow, and stoop, and lie down in the dust, and mortify himself, and then be scarcely saved, as Saint Peter speaks, and they may walk on in the lust of their hearts, and do what they please, and then enter Heaven with all their sins, with Hell itself about them. This is a dangerous error, and we have reason to fear hath sent many the other way, even to the place of torment, where it will bring no ease at all to them to see those whom they foolishly thought this Good did only concern, beaten with more stripes than they. All are men, and this Good is shown to all, and required of all; and tribulation and anguish will be upon every soul that regards it not, upon the Priest first, and also upon the people.  
Thirdly, as it is fitted to all men, so is it lovely and amiable in the eyes of all; and this is the glory and triumph of goodness and piety, that it strikes a reverence in those who neglect it; finds a place in his breast, whose hand is ready to suppress it; is magnified by those who revile it, & tunc vincit cùm laeditur, tunc intelligitur cùm arguitur, then conquers when it cannot prevail, is then understood, when it is opposed, and then gains honour, when it cannot win assent. O! what a victory and triumph had Christ's innocency over the heart and tongue of Pilate, even then when he gave sentence of death against him. Be it as you require, this his ambition and fears forced from him; but I find no fault in the man, this was the victory of Christ's innocency, which made his judge his advocate, who at once pleads for him and condemns him. How glorious were the blessed martyrs in their thoughts who dragged them to execution? How do the wicked saint them in their heart, whom they gnash at with their teeth? How do their passions rage against them, when their reason acquits them? How do good men beat down and dismay their enemies in their very fall? and how do their enemies secretly wish, that being such, they would not be such, but cast in their lots with them, and be as wicked as they? 
Ecclus 49.1.  The remembrance of Josiah, saith the wiseman, is like a perfume, as sweet as hone● in all men's mouths; for as the one takes the sense, so do the other surprizethe reason, and is as proper and natural to the understanding, as honey, and music are to the sense; and this is taken from the common stock of nature, and we never lose it, but with ourselves; nor can we lay it by, till we are unmanned, and like Nabuchadnezzar, drove into the field, and turned into beasts: For who was ever so intemperate, as to condemn temperance for a vice? who was ever such a traitor, as to write a Panegyric on rebellion? who was ever such a devil, as not to wish himself a Saint? we deny not, but that the conntinuance in sin, advantage and prosperity in sin, the pleasures of sin, the long-suffering of God (which may be looked upon as an applause from heaven) the cringes and Idolatry of Parasites, the profit of sin, the honour of sin, may swell and puff up a man of Belial, and build him up into a most unholy faith, that Thus, Thus should it be; That there is no virtue but a thriving vice; no holiness but powerful, and glorious hypocrisy; that vice bowed to is virtue, and virtue whipped and disgraced is vice; but then many a sad interval he hath, many a twinge and gnawing at his heart, that he dare not look upon his sin, but in this dress and state; and maugre all these, many a bitter remembrance, which disquiets and buffets him, that in this height and glory he shakes and wavers, and is unsteadfast in this his faith, that he cannot give a full and constant assent to that which he is so willing to believe; cannot be persuaded of what he is persuaded, not believe what he doth believe; but is sick, and well; is resolved, and trembles; condemns and absolves himself every day; and cannot live in peace in that sin, in which nevertheless he may be resolved to die. To conclude this; even they who weary themselves in the ways of wickedness, know there is no rest but in this Good; and those fools, who count piety as madness, when they make a truce with their passions, and consult with reason, are so wise, as to see and admire, and acknowledge the beauty of this Good.  
Fourthly; and as this Good in the text is lovely and amiable, so is it filling and satisfying; so fitted to the soul, that it fills it, when nothing else can; for that which fills a thing, must be proportioned to it. The heart of man is a little member, it will not, saith Saint Bernard, give a kite its breakfast, and yet it is too large a receptacle, of too great a compass for the whole world to fill; in hoc toto nihil singulis satis est, there is nothing in the whole Universe which is taken for enough by any one particular man; nothing in which the appetite of a single man can rest, only this Good here in the text, can fit it, because 'tis fitted to it; Honour is but air, and is lost in the grasping; Riches are but earth, and sink from us in the digging; Pleasures are but shadows, and slip through our embraces; but this Good is a solid, permanent, lasting thing, changes the soul into itself, fills it in every part, and brings delight where it fills. I have seen an end of all perfection, 
Nieremb. de art. vol.  but thy law is exceeding large, saith David, Ps. 119.96. So large as to fill the soul as with marrow and fatness. We are told by those who have written of the Indians, that there are certain birds there which seem to call passengers to them, making a kind of articulate noise, Lo here it is, and when passengers deceived with this note draw near to that place from whence the sound came, the birds fly away, and at some distance renew their note; and still as the passengers approach, fly away, and then take up the same note, till they have quite led them out of their way. Penes historicos fides esto, Let the truth of this be what it will; what these birds are said to do, that which we so much dote on, and follow after, the things of the world (which are the Good which is most sought after) do truly act. Some song they sing, some pleasure they present to draw us near unto them; for that which is pleasant, and fair to the sense, hath not only a voice, but is eloquent to persuade, and it seems to bespeak us, Lo here it is, here is happiness; and when we send out our desires to overtake it, they miss and come short, and are frustrate: our covetousness follows it, but it flies away; still we pursue it, and that still withdraws, and so we lose our way, wander and err, open to the rage of every beast of every temptation that assaults us, and at last fall into the pit of destruction. And here's the difference between that which is truly good, and that which but colours for it, and appears so: In the one our appetite pleaseth us, but experience is distasteful; it is honey in the desire, but gall in the taste; In the other, in that which is truly good, our appetite many times is dull and queasy, but when we have tasted, and chewed upon it, ●… is sweeter than the honey or the honey comb: It may be gall in the appetite, but in the taste 'tis manna; If you put them into the scales to weigh them, there is no comparison; you may as well measure time with eternity, or weigh one sand of the shore with the whole ocean; for he that feedeth on lies must needs be empty, when 'tis truth alone that fills us.  
Last of all; As this good fills and satisfies us, so it gives a sweet relish and taste even to misery itself, and those evils, which we so fear, as if there were none but those; it makes those things which are not good in themselves useful and advantageous to us; and as Saint Basil observes, 
Bas. de Gratiarum actione. T. 1. p. 357.  is not changed or lost in the multitude and throng of those evils which compass us about on every side, but changes and turns them, and makes them the helpers of our joy, makes loss gain, enriches poverty, ennobles disgrace, shines upon afflictions that we may rejoice in them, crownes persecution with blessedness, and is that alone which maketh Saints and canonizeth Martyrs. It is the delight of man, and it is the delight of Angels, the delight and glory of God himself. In respect of Religion it is not material, whether we be rich, or poor, naked or clothed, at the mill, or on the throne, Censum non requirit, nudo homine contenta est, religion and piety require nothing but a man, for 'twere strange we should think this Good was showed, this Religion ordained to put us to charges. Indeed he that embraceth it, and keeps this treasure in his heart can never be poor, nor weak, nor naked, nor dishonourable; for in what weakness is not he strong? in what solitude hath not he troops to guard him? or when is he poor, who possesseth all things? when is he alone who hath piety for his companion, and the Angels for his ministers? when is he dishonourable, who is clothed with this robe of righteousness? He that hath nothing in this world, if he hath not this art of enjoying nothing, Perdidit infoelix totum nil, hath utterly lost the benefit of that nothing. This may seem a Paradox, and so doth every thing to the flesh, to the sensitive part, which doth confine, and regulate it, which indeed is to honour and spiritualise it; but reason and religion discover more gross absurdities and soloecismes in the motitions and applications of the sense, which wastes itself in its inclinations and long, and is lost in its paradise in that flattering object, to which it was carried with such violence; and so we are made poor in the midst of our heaps, base and dishonourable in our zenith, when we are at the highest; are sick, and tremble as Belshazzar did at a feast, are quickly weary of those delights we longed for; we have least, when we have most, and have nothing, when we have all; when with this Good here in the text, (when in appearance we have nothing) we have more than this world can give, and are then richest, when we are thrown out of it; and are then at the end of our hopes, when to the eye of flesh we are lost for ever.  
Again, as it sweetens our misery, so it improves our wealth; makes that useful to us, which might otherwise ruin us; makes that as a chain and ornament about our necks, which the devil useth to make his snare: Parisiensis calls it Honestissimum furem, the honestest thief in the world, which by taking from us, makes us richer. In a word, it makes the unrighteous mammon a friend, non enim auri vitium est avaritia, for covetousness is not the fault of the gold, nor gluttony of meats, nor drunkenness of wine, but of men; nec deficitur ad mala, sed malè, saith Aust. we fail not in things evil in their own nature, but our great defect is, that even against the order of nature, we abuse those things to evil, which are naturally good. All the riches in the world cannot raise a cloud, saith Basil, but yet we see the widow's two mites did purchase heaven. All the dainties, all the glory which we see, cannot bring us back again into Paradise, and yet a cup of cold water shall find its reward. And this is the end why they are given, to wit, to be subservient to this Good; to be the matter, whereon it may show its art and skill, and extract Manna out of meat, and the water of life out of drink, and eternity out of that which passeth away as a shadow, and returns no more; for sensible things, saith Basil, are as types and representations of spiritual, and point out to them, as the sacrifices under the law, did to Christ, and shall have their consummatum est, and be abolished as they were; and therefore we may so far make use of them (and 'tis the best use we can put them to) to make us in love with this true Good, which may lead us to bliss; and so think of them, as if there no gold at Ophir, no pearl but sanctity, no riches but godliness, no purchase but eternity. And this is the Good in the text, 1. fitted and proportioned to the nature of our soul, 2ly. fitted to all sorts and conditions of men, 3ly. lovely and amiable in the eyes of all, 4ly. filling and satisfying all; And last of all, giving a sweet relish to the worst of evils, which we use most to fear; and making that which is not good in itself, good, and profitable, and advantageous to us; view it well and consider it, and you cannot but say, it is wroth the showing, wroth the sight, and worth the purchase, though we lay down all that we are worth.  
And now to proceed; that you may fall in love with it, and embrace it, It is first, laid open and naked, and manifested unto you; 
jadicavit tibi, He hath showed the.  2ly. published by open proclamation, as a law, which hath 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a forcing and necessitating power, that if the cords of love will not draw you, the bonds and force of a law may confine you to it. 1. he shows it, he hath showed thee, O man what is good; 2ly. he requires it, he wills, he commands it; for what doth God require but this? He hath showed thee O man what is good, and what doth the Lord require?  
And first: That which is truly good is open and manifest unto all; God exposes and lays open, puts it to sale, and bids us come and buy: It is a treasure, and he hath unlocked it; it is a pearl, Math. 13. and he hath opened the casket; It is his light, and he hides it not under a bushel; It is a rule by which we are to walk, and being it concerns our conduct in our way, it is easy, and obvious, and open to the weakest understanding; sua fronte proponitur, saith Tertullian, it is presented to us without any mask or veil. For indeed it is the property of a rule to be so, perspicuous; otherwise it is not a rule, but an Oracle, or rather a snare to catch us; for how shall we be able to embrace it, if we cannot see it? how shall we be able to do our duty, if we know not what it is? if the trumpet give an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself to battle? saith Saint Paul; If this good be clouded with darkness, and perplexities, who shall gird up his loins to make his approaches and addresses to it? 'tis true indeed; to draw near, to lay hold and join with it (having no better retinue commonly, than contempt and reproach, than misery and affliction, than persecution and death, being compassed about with these terrors,) is a matter of difficulty, in regard of our weakness and frailty, which loves not to look upon beauty in such a dress; and that domestic war which is within us, and that fight and contention which is between the flesh and the spirit; and in this respect it is a narrow way, and we must use a kind of violence upon ourselves to work through it to our end; but yet it is showed and manifested, and the knowledge of the way is not shut up and barricadoed, but to those who are not willing to find it, but run a contrary way by some false light, which they had rather look upon and follow, then that which leads them upon the pricks, upon labour, and sorrow, and difficulty. Whatsoever concerns a man, is easy to be seen, for it is as open as the day, in other passages, and dispensations of himself, in other effects of his power and wisdom: God is a God afar off, but in this which concerns us, he is near at hand, he is with us, about us, and within us; In other things, which will no whit advantage us to see, he makes darkness his pavilion round about him, but in this he displays his beams. His way is in the whirlwind, Nahum 1.3. and his footsteps are not known, Ps. 77.19. why he lifts up one on high, and lays another in the dust; why he now shines upon my tabernacle, and anon beats upon it with his tempest; why he placeth a man of Belial in the throne, and sets the poor innocent man to grind at the mill; why he passeth by a brothel-house, and with his thunder beats down his own temple; why he keepeth not a constant course in his works, but to day passeth by us in a still voice, and to morrow in an earthquake; as it is far removed out of our ken and sight, so to know it would not promote or forward us in our motion to happiness; we are the wiser, that we do not know them; for there is no greater folly in the world then for a mortal, finite creature, to discover such a mad ambition, as to desire to know as much, and be as wise as his creator. This was my infirmity, saith David, I was even sick, when I did think of it; and he checketh himself for it, Psal. 77.11. Behold the world is my stage, and here I must move by that light which he hath afforded me, and not be put out of my part to a full shame, by a bold and unseasonable contemplation of God's proceed; not run out of my own ways by gazing too boldly on his. My business is to embrace this good, and that will be my Angel to keep me in all my ways, that I dash not my foot against a stone, against those perplexed and cross events, which are those stones which we so hardly digest. I cannot know why he lifteth up one, and pulleth down another; but if I cleave to this, This will lift up my head, even when I am down. It is not fit I should know why the wicked prosper; but by this light I see a serpent in their Paradise, which will deceive and sting them to death: why they prosper I cannot find out, but he that seems to hid himself, comes so near me, as to tell me, Their prosperity shall slay them. Prov. 1.32. That their greatest happiness is their greatest curse, and if there be an hell on earth, it is better than their heaven. It is not convenient for me to know things to come; quem mihi, quem tibi sinem Dii dederint, what will be my end, and what will be theirs, to know the number of their days how long they shall rage's, and I suffer; these are like the secrets of great Princes, and they may undo us, and therefore they are locked up from us in the prescience and bosom of God, and he keeps the key himself, and will not show them: But cast thy burden upin him, do thy duty, exercise ●hy self in that which he hath shown, and then thou mayest lie down, and rest upon this, that their damnation sleepeth not, that their rage shall not hurt thee, and that thy patience shall crown thee. In a word, If it be evil and thou forseest it, it may cast thee down too low; and if it be good, it may lift thee up too high, and thy exaltation may be more dangerous than thy fall; but Eschew Evil, and follow that which is good, and this will be a certain Prophecy and presage of a good end (be it what it will) whether it come to meet thee in the midst of rays, or of a tempest.  
These things God will not show thee, because thy eye is too weak to receive them; nor in the next place will he answer thy curiosity and determine every question which thou art too ready to to put up; nor redeem thee from those doubts and perplexities, which not knowledge but thy ignorance hath led thee into, and so left thee in that maze and labyrinth, out of which thou canst not get; for it savours more of ignorance than knowledge, to venture in our search without light, to conclude without premises, and to affect the knowledge of that which we must needs know was yet never discovered, and therefore can never be known. That Good which is good for us, he brings out of the treasury of his wisdom, and lays it before us, and bids us come and see how gracious he is; but that which is curiosae disquisitionis, as Tertullian speaks, of a more subtle nature, he keeps from our eyes: for religion may stand fast as mount Zion, though it have not those deeper speculations to support it, which many times supplant and undermine it, and rob it of that precious time, and those earnest endeavours, which were due, and consecrated to it alone. What a fruitless dispute might that seem to be between Saint Hierome and Saint Austin, concerning the original of the soul? when after long debate, and some heat, and frequent intercourse of letters, Saint Austin himself confesses in his Retractions, de origine animae nec tunc sciebam, nec adhuc scio, concerning the souls original, I knew nothing then, and know as little now: what a needless controversy arose between the Eastern and the Western Bishops, concerning the time of the keeping of the Feast of Easter? when whensoever they kept it, they gave some occasion to standers by, of fear, that they kept it both with the leaven of malice and uncharitableness; and what a weakness is it to put that to the question, which before inquiry made, we may easily know we shall never find? Many such questions have been in agitation, many such inquiries made, and some others of another nature, which do not deserve the name of questions, because they cannot be resolved, or are resolved with so little profit; as concerning the state of the dead, which they could not, or would not discover, who were raised from it; of the nature of hell fire, when it should be the study of our whole life to be those new creatures who shall never know it; of the condition of infants, that die in the womb; of God's decrees, and the order of them; of his omnipotency, omniscience, omnipresence, which we as boldly speak of, as we do of the virtues in Aristotle's morals, as if we did see him as he sees us, and did know him as we are known. Many more there are, and to these, many cases of conscience, which do rather perplex and rack the conscience then guide and settle it; and too many, which, as the Apostle speaks of fornication and uncleanness, are not fit to be named amongst us. Poteramus has horas non perdere, The time which hath been spent in the discussion of these, might (to speak no more) have been bestowed with more advantage to the Church and common cause; for I do not see how they come within the compass of this Good, or have added one hair to its perfection. 
Quò plus est dogmatum, hoc uberior est haeresium materia: Nunquam fuit sincerior, callio●que Christiana files, quàm cum illo uno, eoque brevissimo Symbolo contentus est orbis. Erasm. Guliel. Varamo Archiep. Cant. prefat. ●d ep. Hieron.  For what need this loss of oil and labour, this stir and noise? why should this curiosity spread so, as to be as universal as the Church itself? when all that God will show, or concerns us to see, is drawn up within this narrow compass of this one word, that which is Good. Would you view it in its particulars? I need not send you to those many Creeds framed at sundry times, and in divers manners; for Erasmus will tell us, That religion was never more sincere and uncorrupt, then when they used but one Creed, and that a short one: Saint Paul calls the proportion of faith, Rom. 12.6. that proportion, which we must not come short of, nor exceed; a form of sound words, 2 Tim. 1.13. which hath no corrupt doctrine mixed with it, and the truth, which is after Godliness, 1 jit. 1. which is therefore shown, that we may be just, and merciful, and humble: who knows not what 'tis to believe in Christ? to deny ungodliness, and worldly lusts? what oppressor knows not what Justice is, and who more ready to demand it? what tyrant is not ready to beg mercy at his need? who is so puffed up, as to be quite ignorant, what humility is? who understands not our Saviour's Sermon on the mount? Where this Good in the text is spread and dilated into its several parts? And to know these, is to know all that should be known; and did we practise what is easy to know, we should not thus trouble ourselves and others to know what to practice; and as the ancients use to say, the way to knowledge is easy to them who are desirous to be Good, nor was this light ever hid from those, who did delight to walk by it; the law is a light saith David, and to say it is not visible when 'tis held forth, is to deny it to be a light; for he therefore shows it, that it may be seen.  
He hath showed thee O man, etc.  
Thus than God hath shown us, 1. all those things which concern us, 2ly. all that we can apprehend, all those truths of which we are capable; and these two are always in conjunction, and have a mutual aspect one on the other; what concerns us, that we can apprehend, and what we can apprehend concerns us; the mind is large enough for that which will better it, and that which will better it, is obvious to the mind, as Saint Paul speaks, Phil. 4.8. whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are of good report, if there be any virtue, any praise, these are within the compass of this Good here in the text, and are set up and pointed to by the finger of God, for all that are men to look upon.  
But now it may be asked; if the object be so fair and visible, how comes it to pass it is hid from so many eyes, that there be so few that see it, or see it so as to fall in love with it, and embrace it? for as the Prophet asks, who hath believed our report? so may we, who hath delighted in this sight? I must therefore call your thoughts to look upon the spectator, as well as the object, the man as well as the Good. If it be good it was showed to the man, and if he be a man he can see it. He hath showed thee O man what is good: and this word man runneth through every vein of the text, he was built up to be a spectator of this great sight; the man it is, to whom the law is given, and if he be a man, he cannot but behold it; for when he sees it not, he doth exuere hominem, he puts off the man quite, devests himself of reason, and becomes like to the beasts that perish. Many hindrances there may be, to keep it from our eyes, that we do not rightly judge of this Good, in which the man is lost and swallowed up in victory: Isidore of Pelusium hath given us three: the 1. is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the narrowness of the understanding and judgement; the 2. is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, sloth and neglect in the pursuit of it; the 3. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the improbity of men's manners, and a wicked and profane conversation.  
And first, the narrowness and defect in the understanding is an evil incident but to a few; for how can the understanding be too narrow to receive that Good which was fitted and proportioned to it? if it will receive Evil, it will receive Good; for there can be no reason given, why it should be as the needle's eye to piety and holiness, and a wide open door, of capacity enough to let in a legion of devils. No; this befalls none but those who know it not indeed, and yet shall never be questioned for their ignorance, as natural fools and madmen, 
Non est dementia quae est in hominis potestate. Quint. declam. 348.  which bring that disease with them into the world, which they can neither avoid nor cure, and of which the cause cannot be found out, saith the Orator; and these men come not under the common account, nor are to be set down in the roll and catalogue of men; 
Pet. Faber. adel. 124.  Furiosus pro absent, saith the law, wheresoever they are, they are as absent, and whatsoever they do, they do as if they did it not: They are not what they are, and they do not what they do; and why they are so, and what shall be their end, is casus reservatus, is locked up, and reserved in the bosom of God alone; and he that shall ask how it comes to pass that they are thus and thus may well claim kindred of them both. To these it is not showed, who are as far removed from being men, as they are from the use of reason: 
August. l. 1. de doct. Christ.  and how should he see a star in the firmament, saith Saint Austin, who cannot see so far as to my finger, which points up to it? how should they see this good, who are so destitute of reason, which is the only eye, with which we can behold it?  
The 2. is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, sloth and neglect, that we do not search it out, not fix our eyes upon it, but walk on towards our journeys end, sport ourselves in the way, and only salute it in the by, and then (as travellers do many objects and occurences they meet with) behold it, pass by and forget it, or as Saint James speaks, look on it as on a glass, not as women with curiosity and diligence, but as men perfunctorily and slightly, and never once think more of what we have seen: we first slight, and at last loathe it; for a negative contempt is the immediate way, and next step to a positive: venit ignavia, 
Plaut. Mostell.  & ea mihi tempestas fuit, saith he in the Comedy; sloth comes upon us, binds our faculties, and that is the tempest which spoils us of our crop, of that fruit, which we might have gathered from this tree of life. For though this Good be most fully and perspicuously set forth in Scripture, shown in all its beams and glory, yet this gives no encouragement to neglect those means which God hath reached forth unto us, to guide and direct us in our search; There is light enough, and it is plain, is no argument, that we should shut our eyes. For as we do not with the Church of Rome pretend extreme difficulty, and with this pretence quite strike the Scripture out of the hands of the Laity, and busy their zeal with other matters, bind them, as a horse is bound to the mill, and lead them on in the motion of a blind obedience; so do we require the greatest diligence both in reading Scripture, and also in ask counsel of the grey hairs, and multitude of years, of the learned, of those whom God hath placed over them in the Church; and if the great Physician Hypocrates thought it necessary in his art for those who had taken any cure in hand, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, 
Hippocrat in praecep. N●…z. cp. 120.  to ask advice of all, even of Idiots, and those who knew but little in that art; much rather ought we 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, ask counsel of God by prayer, and to be ready to be instructed by any who is a man; for though the lesson be plain, yet we see it so falls out, that negligence doth not pass a line, when industry and meditation have run over the whole book; that diligence hath a full sight of this Good, when sloth and neglect have but heard of its name. Saint Hierom speaks of some in his time, qui solam rusticitatem pro Sanctitate habebant, who accounted rusticity and ignorance the only true holiness, and called themselves the scholars and disciples of the Disciples of Christ, who we are told, were simple and unlearned fishermen; Idcirco Sancti, quod nihil scirent, as if ignorance were the best argument to demonstrate their piety, and they were therefore holy, because they knew not what it was to be so. I will not say, such we have in these our days; no, they are not such as profess ignorance, but who are as ignorant as they could be who did profess it. Like the lilies of the field, they labour not, they study not, and yet Solomon with all his wisdom was not so wise as one of these: Some crumbs fall from their master's table, some passage they catch and lay hold on from some Prophet, which they call theirs, and this so fills them, that they must vent, that it runs over, and defiles and corrupts that which they will not understand; for bring them to a trial, and you shall find them as well skilled in Scripture, as he was in Virgil, who having studied it long, at last asked whether Aeneas was a man or a woman. Faith is their daily bread, their common language; religion they speak of, as oft almost as they do speak; piety dwells with them, purity is their proper passion, or essence rather; but then this Good in the text, Justice, and Mercy, and honesty in conversation (if we may judge of the tree by his fruits) is not, as the Psalmist speaks, in all their thoughts, for it is scarce in any of their ways; and we have that reason, which we would not have, to fear, that they do but talk of it. Now to cast a careless look upon this good is not to see it; to talk of it, is not to understand it; to name it, is not to embrace it; for all these may be in a man who hath the price in his hand, but hath no heart to buy it: and as the Philosopher said of those who were punished after death in their carcases, Relicto cadavere abijt reus, the body was left behind, but the guilty person, the Parricide was departed and gone: So here is a lump of flesh, but the man is gone, nay dead and buried, covered over with outward formalities, with words and fancy: This is not the man in the text, and then no marvel if he cannot see this great sight.  
The 3. is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Improbity of manners, a mind immersed and drowned in all the filth and pollution of the world, evil affected, Acts 14.2. Corrupt, 
Arislotle Eth. 6.5. M●gnis sceleribus in●a naturae intereunt. Sen. Cont.  2 Tim. 3.8. for wickedness is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, saith the Philosopher, and doth corrupt the very principles of nature, and make that Candle, as Solomon calls it, which God hath lighted up in our hearts, burn but dimly; and as we read, when the earth was without form and void, darkness was upon the face of the deep; so when the perturbations of our mind interpose themselves, as the earth, there is strait a darkness over the soul. An Evil eye cannot behold that which is good; An eye full of Adulteries, cannot discover the beauty of chastity; A lustful eye cannot see justice; a Lofty eye can neither look upon mercy, nor humility. The love of honour makes the judgement follow it to that pitch and height, which it hath set and marked out: The love of money will gloss that blessing, which our Saviour hath annexed to poverty of spirit. My factious humour will strike at the very life and heart of religion, in the name of religion and God himself, and destroy Christianity for the love of Christ. Resist not the power; In one age 'tis glossed, bound in with limitations and exceptions, or rather let lose to run along with men of turbulent spirits against itself; in another, when the wind is turned, 'tis a plain text, and needs no interpreter. Bid the angry gallant bow to his enemy; he will count you a fool: Bid the covetous sell all that he hath; he will think you none of the wisest, and pity or scorn you: Bid the wanton forsake that strumpet, which he calls his mistress; and he will send you a challenge, and for attempting to help him out of that deep ditch, 
Prov. 23.27.  will send you to your grave. We may talk what we please of Martion, and Manes, of heretics and the devil, as interpolators and corrupters of Scripture; but it is the wickedness of men's hearts, that have cut and mangled it, and made it what we please, made it join and comply with that which it forbids, and severely threatens. Now to conclude this; in the midst of so many passions and perturbations, in the throng of so many vices, and ill humours, in this Chaos and confusion, where is the man? There is a body left behind, inutile pondus, an unweildly and unprofitable outside of a man, the garment, the picture, or rather the shadow of a man, and we may say of him, as Jacob did when he saw joseph's coat, It is my sons cout, but evil beasts have devoured him, Gen. 37.33. Here is the shape, the garment, the outside of a man, but the man without doubt is rend in pieces, distracted, and torn asunder by the perturbations of his mind, corrupted, annihilated, unmanned by his vices, and there is nothing left but his coat, his body, his carcase, and the name of a man. This is not the man, and then no marvel if he do not see this great sight: In his day, whilst he was a man, his reason not clouded, his understanding not darkened, in this his day, it was showed to him, and it was fair and radiant, but now all is night about him, and 'tis hid from his eye; for if it be hid, it is hid to them that perish, to them that will perish, 2 Cor. 4.3. He hath showed thee O man: The Good invites the man, and the man cannot but look upon that which is Good. Draw then thy soul out of prison; take the man out of his grave, draw him out of these clouds of sloth, of passion, of Prejudice, and this good here, Piety and Religion, will be as the sun, when it shineth in its strength.  
For conclusion then; let us cleave fast to this good, and uphold it in its native and proper purity against all external rites, 
Conclusion.  and empty formalities, and in the next place, against all the pomp of the world, against that which we call good, when it makes us evil. I am almost ashamed to name this, or make the comparison; For what is wealth to righteousness? what is policy to religion? what is earth to heaven? but I know not how men have been so vain as to attempt to draw them together, and to shut up the world in this good, or rather this good in the world; to call down God from heaven, not only to partake of our flesh, but our infirmities, and sins, and draw down that which is truly good, and make it an assistant and auxiliary to that which is truly evil. For how do men's countenance, nay how doth their religion alter, as they see or hear how the world doth go? Now they are of this faction, and then of that, and anon of a third: Now Protestants, anon Brownists, anon Papists, anon— but I cannot number the many religions, and the no-religions; but wheresoever they fasten, they see it, and say it is Good; so that as it was observed of the Romans, that before the corruption and decay of manners they would not entertain a servant or officer but of a perfect and goodly shape; but afterwards, when luxury and riot had prevailed, and was in credit with them, they diligently sought out, and counted it a kind of elegancy and state to take into their retinue dwarves, and monsters, and men of a prodigious appearance, ludibria naturae, those errors and mockeries of nature: So hath it also fallen out with Religion, at the first ●ise and dawning of it, men did lay hold on that faith alone which was once delivered to the saints, and went about doing good; but when this light had passed more degrees, men began to play the wantoness in it, and to seek out divers inventions; and this Good, the doctrine of faith was made to give way to those sick and loathsome humours, which did pollute and defile it; and instead of following that which was showed, they set up something of their own to follow and countenance them in whatsoever they should undertake, and then did look upon it alone, and please, and delight themselves in it, although it was as different from the true pattern which was first showed as a monster is from a man of perfect shape; as Quintilian speaks of some professors of his art, illa, quaecunque deflexa tanquam exquisitiora mirabantur, and that was cried up with admiration, which had nothing in it marvellous or to be wondered at, but its deformity. We have a proverb, that It is ill going in procession, where the devil says mass; but most certain it is, there be too many, who never move nor walk but where he is the leader. If the Prince of the air, if the God of this world go before, we follow, nay we fly after. If any child or slave of his hold out his sceptre, we bow and kiss it. The world, the world is the mint, where most men's religion is coined; and if you well mark the stamp and superscription, you may see the Prince of the air on one side, and the world on the other; the devil on the side like an Angel of light, and the world on the other with its pomp and glories: And then when we have brought our desires home to their ends, when we have raised our state and name, how good, how religious are we? when the purse is full, the conscience is quiet; when we are laden with earthly blessings, we take them as a fair pledge of eternal: we say to ourselves as Michah did, Judges 17.13. Now I know that the Lord will do me good, because I have a Priest, said he; because we have great possessions, say we, as great Idolaters as Micah, for what are our shekels of silver, but as his graven and molten image? and thus we walk on securely all the days of our life, not as the children of this world, but as the children of light, and out of our great abundance sometimes drop a penny; we wast away, and sicken, and make our will, and seal it, and doubt not, but the spirit will do his office and seal our redemption: at last the rich man dies, and is buried, and some hireling will tell you, The Angels have carried his soul into heaven: A strange conceit, and if true, would be of force to pluck Lazarus out of Abraham's bosom, and to bring back Dives through the gulf, and place him in his room.  
But if this be not true, may it never be true: only let us not deceive ourselves, but search and try our hearts, and root out all such vain, such groundless, such pernicious imaginations, which may be raised up in time of prosperity, and multiply like flies in the Sun: Let us not seek our peace in those false, fictitious, spurious, deceitful Goods, but in the true, and full, and filling Good, the Good here in the Text; and because God hath fitted and proportioned it to us, let us fit and apply ourselves unto it; and since he hath built us up after his own Image, let us adorn and beautify it with Justice, and Mercy, and Humility, and not blur and deface it with the craft of a Fox, the lust of a Goat, and the rage of a Lion; for what should the mark of the Beast do upon the Image of God? Again, being fitted to us and to all sorts and conditions of men, Let young men and maids, old men and children, Scribes and Idiots, Noble and ignoble, Priest and people, cleave and adhere to it, and so praise and magnify the Name of the Lord; sic laudant Angeli, for so the Angels and Archangels praise him. And thirdly, being lovely and amiable, let us make it our choice, and espouse our wills to it, love and embrace it; not kiss and wound it, approve and condemn it, worship it in our hearts, and persecute it in our brethren: And since it is a filling and satisfying good, here let us let down our pitchers, and draw waters out of this well of salvation, even those waters which will sweeten our miseries, and give a pleasant taste to bitterness itself.  
To conclude, behold here is the object, that which is Good; fair and beautiful to the eye; 
Jer. 5.1.  Run to and fro through the streets of Jerusalem, and see of you can find a MAN, and he is the spectator, and cannot but see it. But what went you out into the wilderness to see? saith our Saviour; why the eye is never satisfied, and all would go out to see; some would see soft raiment, and that you may see on every back; some gaze upon beauty, and that's a burning-glasse to set the soul on fire. Others love to see the redness of the wine; look not on it, saith Solomon, It is a mocker. Some would behold a show of pomp and glory, and we see, though justice can never fail, but hath the best, even when she is worsted, yet injustice hath had more triumphs than she. When Julius Caesar triumphed over his country, and Pompey rid in with the spoils of Asia, the ceremony, the pomp, the glory was the same. But the eye with which we behold these spectacles is not fit for this object; we have another eye, a spiritual eye, we call it the eye of our reason, and we call it the eye of our faith, which many times is but as an eye of glass for show, but no use at all, and serves to hid a deformity, but not to see with; but if it be a quick and living eye, than here is a fit object for it, worth the looking on, in which we may see all other things in a fairer dress, in a celestial form, in the Beauty of Holiness, being made useful and subservient to it, like that Speculum Trinitatis, that feigned Glass, in which (they tell us) he that looks, sees all things. If we see it not, then are we blind, 2 Pet. 1.9. or if not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, purblind, not seeing afar off those things which are laid up in heaven, for those who look upon this Good, and love it: and then I am unwilling to say what we are, but certainly we are but infidels. And indeed there is something of infidelity, in all our aversions and turning away from this good: for what's the reason, that covetous men make riches an Idol, and sacrifice to their own net, but want of faith, and their distrust in God? for when God doth not answer their desires, they run with Saul to the devil at Endor, 
T●rtull. adv. Judaens. c. 1. p●ae●sset eyes bubalum capul, etc.  or with the Israelites in a pet choose to themselves Bubulum caput, as Tertullian expresseth it, a calf's head to be their leader. I say, there is a degree of infidelity in all these aversions from this good; all that can be said is but what many say within themselves after they have consulted with flesh and blood, that this good is not shown so clearly, nor made so plain, as it is said to be, which is indeed to remove their own prop and pillar, to demolish their own Idol, and to drive faith quite out of the world: believe they do in God, yet will not trust him; and they are persuaded of the truth of things not seen, yet will leave the pursuit of them, to follow vanity, because they are not seen. He hath showed thee, O man, what is good, and wilt thou not believe him? faith is the substance of things not seen, and though they be not seen, yet they are evident, the Means evident, and the End as evident as the Means; In our sad and sober thoughts, when we talk like speculative men, as evident as what is open to the eye. But such an evidence we have, which a covetous man would soon, lay hold on for a title to a fair inheritance; and the ambitious for an assignment of some great place: for if such a record had been transmitted to posterity, if the Scripture which conveys this Good, had entailed some rich Manor or Lordship upon them, it should have then found an easy belief, and been Gospel, a sure word of prophecy, unquestionable, undoubtable, like the decrees of the Medes and Persians, which must stand fast for ever and cannot be altered; for too many there be who had rather have their names in a good leaf, then in the book of life; and this is the reason why we are so ignorant of that which is good indeed, and so great clerks in that which is calted good, but by the worst; why we are so dull and indocile in apprehending that wisdom, which is from above, and so wise and witty to our own damnation; why we do but darkly see this Good which is so plainly showed unto us.  
What shall we say then? nay, what saith the Scripture? Awake thou that sleepest in sloth and idleness; thou that sleepest in a tempest, in the midst of thy unruly and turbulent passions; arise from the grave and sepulchre wherein thy sloth hath entombed thee; arise from the dead, from that nasty charnel-house of rotten bones, where so many vicious habits have shut thee up; break up thy monument, cast aside every weight, and every sin, that presseth down, and rise up, and be but a man, improve thy reason to thy best advantage, and this Good shall shine upon thee with all its beams and brightness, and Christ shall give thee light, if not to see things to come, to satisfy thy curiosity, yet to see things to come, which shall fill thy soul as with marrow and fatness; if not to know the uncertain, yet certain ways of God's providence, yet to know the certain and infallible way to bliss; if not to know things too high for thee, yet to know that which shall exalt thee to heavenly places in Christ Jesus. He hath shown thee, O man, what is Good: dost thou see it? dost thou believe it? thou shalt see greater things than these: thou shalt see what thou dost believe; enjoy what thou dost but hope for; thou shalt see God, who hath showed thee this Good, that thou mightest see him; thou shalt then have a more exact knowledge of his ways and providence, a fuller taste of his love and goodness, a clearer sight of his beauty and majesty, and with all his Angels, and all his Saints behold his glory for evermore.  
Thus much of this Good as it is an object to be looked on; we shall in the next place consider it as a Law. Quid requirit? what doth the Lord require?    

 blazon or royal coat of arms of England and Wales HONI ●…T QVI MAL Y PENSE  
The Three and Twentieth SERMON.  

PART III.  MICAH 6.8. 
He hath showed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, etc.  
HE hath showed thee, O man, what is good; what it is thou wert made for, even that which is fitted and proportioned to thy soul; that which is lovely and amiable, and so a fit object to look on; that which will fill and satisfy the soul, and turn the greatest evil the world can lay as a stone of offence in our way, into good, and raise itself upon it, to its highest pitch of glory; and this he hath made plain and manifest, drawn out in so visible a character, that thou mayest run and read it. And thus far we have already brought you.  
We must yet lead you further, even to the foot of mount Sinai; what doth the Lord require of thee? which is as the publication of it, and making it a law: For with the thunder, and the lightning, and the sound of the Trumpet, and the voice of words, this voice was heard, I am the Lord. Thus saith the Lord; It is the Prophet's Warrant or Commission; I the Lord have spoken it, is a seal to the Law. By this every word shall stand, by this every Law is of force. It is a word of power, and command, and authority; for he that can do what he will, may also require what he will, in heaven or in earth. So then, If he be the Lord, he may require it; and in this one word, in this Monosyllable, all power in heaven and in earth is contained. For in calling him Lord he assigns unto him an absolute will, which must be the rule of our will, and of all the actions which are the effects and works of our will, and issue from it, as from their first principle and mover. And this his will is attended, 1. with Power, 2. with Wisdom, 3. with Love. 1. By his power he made us; 2. he protects and preserves us; and from this issues his legislative power: 3. as by his Wisdom he made us, so by the same wisdom he gives us such a Law, which shall sweetly and certainly lead us to that End for which he made us; And last of all, his Love it is to the work of his own hands, thus to lead us: And all these are shut up in this one word Lord. And let us view and consider these, and so look upon them, as to draw down their influence and virtue into our souls, which may work that obedience in us, which this Lord requires, and will reward.  
And 1. 
Quid requirit Dominus? what doth the Lord require?  It is the Lord requires it; and I need not trouble you with a recital of those places of Scripture, where God is called the Lord. For if the Scripture be as the Heaven, this is a Star of the greatest magnitude, and spreads its beams of Majesty and power in the eyes of all men; and to require is the very form of a Law: I will, I require, if power speak, It is a law. It will be more apposite and agreeable to our purpose, that we may the more willingly embrace and entertain this Good, which is published as a law, to look upon this word Lord, as it expresses the Majesty and greatness of God; for he is therefore said to be the Lord, because he is omnipotent, and can do all things, that he will. He is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, saith Nazianzen, a vast and boundless Ocean of essence, and he is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a boundless and infinite sea of power. Take the highest pitch of Dominion and Lordship that our imagination can reach, yet it falls short of his, who is Lord of Lords, to whom all earthly Majesty must veil, and at whose feet all Princes lay down their Crowns and Sceptres. And therefore Dionysius Longinus falling upon the story of the Creation, makes that expression of Moses, 
Dionys. Long. de sublimi genere orat. Sect. 7.  〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Let there be light, and there wus light; Let there be earth, and there was earth; the highest and most sublime that the art or thought of man could reach, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, for thus the Majesty of God is best set forth; He no sooner speaks, but it is done. Nor can it be otherwise; for as he is a Lord, and hath an absolute and  will, so this will is attended by his infinite power, which is inseparable from it; And you may find them both joined together, Acts 4.28. All things are done, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, whatsoever his hand and his counsel determined to do; for because he can do all things, therefore he brings to pass whatsoever he will; and his hand and power hath here the first place, because all counsel falls to the ground, if power be not as a pillar and supporter to uphold it. What is the strength of a strong man, if there be a stronger than he, to bind and disarm him? what is it to conceive something in the womb of the mind, to shape and form and fashion it, to bring it even to the door of life, if there be no strength to bring it forth? what is my will if it be defeated? 
Libera volunt as in nullum habe imperium, praeterquam in se. Hlerocles apud Phor. Bibliot: 394.  Thus it falls out with dust and ashes, with man, whose will is free, when his hands are bound; who may propose miracles but can do nothing; who may will the dissolution of the world, when he hath not power to kill a fly, or the least gnat that lights upon him. But God's power is infinite, nor can any thing in heaven or earth limit it, but his will, which doth regulate and restrain it, which otherwise must needs have a larger flow. If he cut off, or shut up, or gather together, who can hinder him? Job 11.10. The voice of the Lord, that is, his power (for his word is power) is full of Majesty, it breaketh the Cedars of Lebanon, and maketh them skip like a calf. It hath set a tabernacle for the Sun, he bids it run its race, and commands it to stand still; he doth whatsoever he will in heaven or in earth. I need not here enlarge myself; Every work to his is a miracle, every miracle is eloquent to declare his power: Every thing that hath breath speaketh it, and that which hath neither breath nor life speaketh it; that which hath voice speaketh it, and that which is dumb speaks it: Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night shows knowledge. There is no speech, nor language, 
Apul. de mu●lo  where their voice is not heard, Psal. 19.23. The power of this Lord is the proper language of the whole world: Non, ut ait ille, silere melius est, sed vel parùm dicere; It is not good to be silent, nay we cannot be silent, but yet 'tis not good to speak too much of the power of this Lord, because we cannot speak enough, nor can any finite understanding comprehend it.  
Now by this power, 1. God created man, and breathed into him a living soul; made him as it were wax fit to receive the impressions of a deity; made him a subject capable of a Law. I am fearfully and wonderfully made, saith David, Psal. 139. marvellously made, excellently made, set apart, selected, culled out, as it is Psal. 4.4. from all the other creatures of the earth, to walk with God and be perfect. My members were curiously wrought, drawn as with a needle (for so the word there signifies) embroidered with all variety, as with divers colours, every part being made instrumental either to the keeping, or breaking of the Divine Law. I am as it were built and set up on purpose, to hearken what that power which thus set me up, will require of me. In a word, It is he that made us, not we ourselves; and made us to this end, to his glory, to be united to himself, to bow under his power, to be conformed to his will, and so to gain a title to that happiness, and which is ready to meet them that run unto it, by doing what he requires at their hands.  
2 . By this power as he creates, so he continues him and protects him; doth not leave him as an artificer doth his work, to the injuries of time, to last or perish, as the strength of the materials is, of which it consists; but as by his power he made him, so by the same power he upholds and preserves him, that in this life he may move and press forward to a better; he moves in him, and moves with him, that in this span of time he may make a way to eternity. He giveth to all, Acts 17.25. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, life and breath, but in a more eminent manner to man, to whom he hath communicated part of his power, and given him dominion over himself, and other creatures: He is not far from every one of us, v. 27. he is near us, with us, within us; He hath made the small and the great, and careth for all alike, Wisd. 6.7. Sceleratis sol exoritur, saith Seneca, his Sun riseth upon the evil, and the good, saith our Saviour. Math. 5.45. His power moves in the hand that smites his brother, and in the hand, that lifts him out of the dust; moves in the Tyrant, which walks in his palace, and with that poor man who grinds at the mill: By it Uzzahs' hand was stretched out to uphold the Ark, and by it he was smitten and died: 
D●us Salus est & perseverantion earum quas effecerit rerum. Apul. ibid.  It moves in the eye that is open to vanity, and in the eye that is shut up by covenant. All the creatures, all men, all motions and actions of men are in manutentia Divina; My times are in thy hand, saith David, Psal. 31.15. and in this sense, the Schools tell us, that the creation of man and his conservation are but one continued act, that we may say of every creature, so long as it is, so long God creates it; because creation respects the being of the creature, as made out of nothing, and conservation the being of the same creature, as continually quickened and upheld, that it fall not back again into that nothing out of which it was made: for his power is the Being of the creature, and the withdrawing of it, is its annihilation: The heavens and the earth are by the word of God, are established by his power, and when he will no longer uphold them, all shall be dissolved, and the Elements shall melt with heat: It is no more but the withdrawing of his power, and the world is at an end.  
Now in the next place; from this Ocean of his power naturally issues forth his power of giving Laws, of requiring what he please, from his creature: for as there is but one omnipotent God, so there is but one Lawgiver, who is able to save and to destroy: James 4.12. for the one is the ground and foundation of the other: If he made us, and not we ourselves; if he preserve us, and nor we ourselves; than not we ourselves, but he is to give us Laws. It is here Do ut des, and, facio ut facias; he gives us our being and continuance, that we should give him our obedience and subjection; he doth this for us, that we may do something for him, even whatsoever he shall require. The Stoics say well 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 All duties are measured out by relations: 
Epict. Enchir. c. 28.  The care of the Father calls for the Honour of the Son; the oversight of the master commands the obedience of the servant; and the Father and the Master are to the Son and Servant as Moses is said to be to Pharaoh, Exod. 4.16. instead of God. Domestici magistratus, saith Seneca, 
Sen. de Benes. 3.11.  Domestic Lords or Magistrates: He is my father, if he speak the word, 'tis done; He is my Master & Lord; if he say Go, I go. The reason of this is plain; for Beneficia Compedes, All benefits are as fetters, are obligations, and he that doth me good, obligeth me, placeth himself as it were in authority over me, and giveth me Laws, looks upon me as his Creature, which must do whatsoever he requires in a just and equal proportion to what he hath done. Accepi beneficium, & protinus perdidi libertatem, I receive a good turn, and forthwith lose my liberty; my hand is filled and bound at once, bound to his service that fills it. If he say, do this, I do it, I plead for him, I commend him, I excuse him, I run for him, I die for him, because he is my friend: If my friend bid me, I will set fire on the Capitol, saith Blosius in Tully. Not only a Father, 
Tull. de Amicitia.  a Master, a Lord, but a Friend, every one that obligeth me is a kind of Lawgiver, bounds and keeps me in on every side, tenders me his Edicts and Laws, by doing something for me, gains a power over me. In the civil-law it is styled Patris Majestas, the Majesty of a Father, and there is the Majesty of a Master, 
Nique id magis facimus quàm nos monet pietas. Plant. Stich. Act. 1. sc. 1.  and the Majesty of a Friend or Benefactor: for* nostrum officium nos facere aequum est, There is a kind of Equity & Justice, that he that buys me with a price, should claim some interest in me. These are those cords of men to tie us to them; and if we break them asunder, and cast these bands from us, if we will not answer the diligent love of a Friend, by doing something which may be required at our hands, we are guilty of a foul Ingratitude, which is a kind of Civil or Moral Rebellion. And therefore God takes up this as an argument against the Rebellious Jews, and draws it from that Relation which was founded on his Power, and that love which he had showed to them, Mal. 1.6. A Son honoureth his Father, and a Servant his Master: If then I be a Father, where is my Honour? If I be a Master, where is my Fear? saith the Lord of Hosts; who am not only your Lord by right of Creation, but your Father for my daily care and preservation of you, and those many benefits I have laden you withal. And You are my friends, if you do what I command you, saith Christ, Joh. 15.14. If you do it not, you are not my friends, but you have broke that relation, which might have been eternal. So that we see, one power follows another, as in a chain; The power and right of Dominion, the power by which we were made and are preserved; the power of giving Laws, the power that made us capable of a Law: He that did these great things for us, may require what he please. First, God creates Man, and then gives him a Law, puts him to the trial of his Obedience; for by the same Act of Power, by Creating, as he acquired to himself the full right of Dominion, so he brought also upon Man the Necessity of Subjection. Lord, what will thou have me to do? saith Saint Paul, when he was struck to the ground, Acts 9 verbum breve, 
Rern. de converse. Paul. Ser. 7.  sed vivum, sed efficax, saith Bernard, a short speech, but full, and lively, and operative, even an acknowledgement of that power of God, which is mighty in operation; by which power he hath authority to command and require what he will.  
God's Will then thus attended with his Power, must be the rule of all our actions, and is the matrix from which all Laws must issue. But in the next place; As his Absolute Will is attended with Power , so is it also with Wisdom unquestionable: For as he is the only Powerful, so he is the only wise God, Rom. 16.27.1 Tim. 1.17. and from the inexhaust fountain of his Wisdom flow those Rivers of Laws, which make glad the City of God; which are made, as all things in the world are, in Number, Weight, and Measure; Numbered, Weighed, Measured, fitted out unto us, That we may live and move thereby, even move upwards towards the House of our Lord, where there are many mansions prepared for us. So that all the Laws of men which look towards Innocency, and Perfection, 
Tertull. Apol. c. 45.  are borrowed, saith Tertullian, from the Divine Law; and all Lawgivers are called by Galen, and called themselves the Disciples of God; Minos of Jupiter, Numa of Egeria, Solon of Minerva, Lycurgus of Apollo, Trismegistus of Mercury; none ever having been thought fit to make a Law, but God, whose Power hath no bounds but his Will; 
Nalla lex satis commoda omnibus est, etc. Liv. Dec. 4. l. 4  and whose Wisdom reacheth over all Tempers and Constitutions, all Casualties and Contingences, all Circumstances of Time or Place, all Cross intercurrent Accidents, which the narrowness of man's understanding, which human frailty cannot foresee, 
Nalla t●nta esse 〈◊〉 prude●iam jorum, ut ad omne ignus acquitiae accurrat— Qaint. doct. 350.  nor prevent. Lex erit omne quod ratione consistit, saith Tertullian, That which binds a reasonable creature, must itself be reasonable; and whatsoever is reasonable, is a Law; and reason is a beam of the Divine Light, by which all Laws, which deserve the name of Laws, were drawn.  
The Power of God, yea and his Wisdom ruleth over all, and his Laws are like himself, Just and holy, pure and undefiled, unchangeable, 
Qui dat rationem, dat legem. Tert. de Coron. mil. c. 4.  immutable, and everlasting; fitted to the first Age of the world, and fitted to the last; fitted to the wisest, and fitted to the simplest; fitted to times of peace, and fitted to times of tumult; established, and mighty against all occurrences, all alterations, all mutations whatsoever. There is no time wherein a man may not be just and honest, wherein he may not be merciful and compassionate, wherein he may not be humble and sincere. A Tyrant may strip me of my possessions, but he cannot take from me my honesty; he may leave me nothing to give, but he cannot sequester my compassion; he may lay me in my Grave, but my Humility will raise me up as high as Heaven. The great Prince of the Air, and all his Legions of Devils or men cannot pull us back, or stop us in the course of our obedience to the Will and Law of God; but we may continue it and carry it along through honour and dishonour, through good report and evil report, through all the terrors and affrightments which Men or Devils can place in our way. What he requires, he required, (and it may be done) yesterday, and to day, and to the endof the world.  
And as his Wisdom is seen in giving Laws, so it is in fitting the Means to the End; in giving them that virtue and force to draw us to a nearer vision and sight of God, whose wisdom reacheth from one end to another mightily, and doth sweetly order all things, Wisd. 8.1. For which way can frail Man come to see his God, but by being like him? what can draw him near to his pure Essence, but simplicity and purity of spirit? what can carry us to the God of love, but Charity? what can lead him into the Courts of Righteousness, but Justice? what can move a God of tender mercies, but Compassion? For certainly God will never look down from his Mercy-seat, on them that have no Bowels. In a word, What can make us wise, but that which is good? Those virtues, Temperance, Justice, and Liberality, which are called the Labours of wisdom, Wisd. 8.8. what can bring us into Heaven, but this full Taste of the powers of the world to come? so that there is some Truth in that of Gerson, Gloria est gratia consummata, Glory is nothing else but Grace made perfect and consummate; For though we cannot thus draw Grace and Glory together, as to make them one and the same thing, but must put a difference between the Means and the End; yet Wisdom itself hath written it down in an indelible character, and in the leaves of eternity, That there is no other key but this Good in the Text, to open the Gates of the Kingdom of Heaven; and he that brings this along with him, shall certainly enter. Heaven and Glory is a thing of another world, but yet it gins here in this, and Grace is made perfect in Glory.  
And therefore, in the last place; his Absolute will is not only attended with Power, and Wisdom, but with Love; and these are the Glories of his Will; He can do what he will, and he will do it by the most proper and fittest means; and whatsoever he requires, is the Dictate of his Love. When he sent his Son, the best Master, and wisest Lawgiver that ever was, on whose shoulders the Government was laid, he was ushered in with a Sic dilexit, so God loved the world; 
john ●.  and his love seems to have the preeminence, and to do more than his power, which can but annihilate us; but his love, if we embrace it will change our souls, and Angelify them; and change our bodies and spiritualise them; and endow us with the will, and so with the power of God; make us differ as much from ourselves, as if we were not Annihilated, which his power can do; but which is more, made something else, something better, something nearer to God, which is that mighty Thing which his Love brings to pass. We may imagine, that a Law is a mere indication of power, that it proceeds from Rigour, and Severity; that there is nothing commanded, nothing required, but there is Smoke, and Thunder, and Lightning; but indeed every Law of God is the Natural and proper effect and Issue of his Love; from his power, 'tis true; but his power managed and shown in Wisdom and Love; For he made us to this End, and to this End he requires something of us; not out of any Indigency, as if he wanted our Company and Service, (for he was as Happy before the Creation, as after) but to have some object for his Love and Goodness to work upon; to have an Exceptory, and vessel for the dew of Heaven to fall into; as the Jews were wont to say, Propter Messiam mundum fuisse conditum, That the world and all mankind were made for the Messiah, whose business was to preach the Law which his Father said unto him, 
Psal. 2.7.  and to declare his will.  
And in this Consists the perfection and Beauty of Man; for the perfection of Every Thing is its drawing near to its first principle and Original; and the nearer and liker a thing is to the first cause that produced it, the more perfect it is as the Heat is most perfect, which is most intense, and hath most of the Fire in it. And Man the more he partakes of that which is Truly Good, of the Divine Nature, of which his soul is as it were a sparkle, the more perfect he is, because this was the only End for which God made him; This was the End of all his Laws, that he might find just Cause to do him Good; That man might draw near to him here by Obedience, and Conformity to his will, and in the world to come reign with him for ever in Glory. And as it is the perfection, so is it the Beauty of a man: for, as there is the Beauty of the Lord, Psal. 27.4. so is there the beauty of the subject: The Beauty of the Lord is to have will, and power, and Jurisdiction, to have power and wisdom to command, and to command in love: So is it the beauty of a man to bow, and submit, and conform to the will of the Lord, (for what a deformed spectacle is a Man without God in this world?) which hath power, and wisdom, and love to beautify it. Beauty is nothing else but a result from perfection; the beauty of the Body proceeding from the symmetry and due proportion of parts, and the beauty of the Soul from the consonancy of the will and affections to the will and law of God. Oh how beautiful are those feet which walk in the ways of life? how beautiful and glorious shall he be, who walks in love as God loved him; who rests on his power, and walks by his wisdom, and placeth himself under the shadow of his love? And thus much the substance of these words afford us, What doth the Lord require?  
Let us now cast an eye upon them in the Form and Habit in which they are presented, and consider the manner of proposing them; and the Prophet proposeth it by way of Interrogation: And as he asked the question, wherewith shall I come before the Lord? so doth he here ask, what doth the Lord require? For he doth not bespeak them in positive Terms, as the Prophet Jeremiah doth 6.16. Ask for the Old paths, where is the Good way, and walk therein, or as the Prophet Esai. c. 30. This is the way, walk in it; but shapes and forms his speech to the Temper and disposition of the people, who sought out many ways, but miss of the right. For so we find Interrogations to be fitted, and sharpened like darts, and then sent towards them who could not be awaked with less noise, nor lesser smart: and we find them of divers shapes and Fashions. Sometimes they come as complaints, why do the Heathen rage? Ps. 2.1. Sometimes as upbraid, How camest thou in hither? Math. 22. Sometimes as Admonitions; why should I now kill thee? 2 Sam. 2. Sometimes as Reproofs, why tempt ye me, you Hypocrites? and whithersoever they fly, they are Feathered and pointed with reason; for there is no reason why that should be done, of which Christ asks a reason, why it is done? And here it hath divers aspects, it looks 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, forward and backward; it looks back upon the Jew busy at his Sacrifice, and it looks forward to the Beauty of Holiness, and it is levelled at the very Heart of those Errors, which led them from the City of God into the wilderness, from that which is Truly Good, to that which is so but in appearance, which did show well, and speak well, but such words, which were clothed with death; For it checks them in their old course, and then shows them a more excellent way. The Jew (as we have told you formerly) pleased himself in that pier of service, which was most attempered to the sense, and might be passed over. and performed with less vexation of the Spirit, and labour of the mind; for what an easy matter was it to approach the Courts of God, to appear before the Altar? what great trouble was it to bind the Sacrifice with cords to the Horns of it? Nay this was their delight, this they doted on, and this they thought none could cry down, but a false Prophet. Did they not thus speak and murmur within themselves, If this be not, what is then Religion? If to appear in his Courts, to offer Sacrifice, be not to serve God, how should we bow before him and serve him? as many say in their hearts now adays; If to go to Church, to be zealous in a Faction, to cry down Superstition, be not true Religion, what Religion can there be? Who can speak against it but an uncircumcised Philistim, or he that hath drunk deep of the Cup of the Whore? He that preacheth any other Law, or any other Gospel, let him be Anathema. And therefore the Prophet to silence this, asks another question; Do you ask, if this be not, what is true Religion? I ask also, What doth the Lord require? Not this in which you please yourselves, But something else; But, to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God.  
And this But, as it is an Exclusive, and shuts out all other services whatsoever, which look not this way, or are not conducible to uphold, support, and promote it; so it doth colour, as it were, and place a kind of amiableness, a philtrum upon it, which may invite and win us to embrace it. For, commonly, those duties which require the luctation of the mind, the strive and victories of the Spirit, are more formidable, and so more avoided, than those which employ only the outward man, the Eye, the Tongue, the Ear, and the Hand: Here every man is ready and officious, and thrusts himself into the service; every man almost, rejoiceth to run his race, and there is a kind of emulation and contention, who shall be the forwardest; but those commands which set us at variance within ourselves, which busy the Spirit against the Flesh; which sound the Alarm, and call us into the lists to fight the good fight of Faith against ourselves, against our Imaginations, even those which lie unto us, and tell us All is well: These are that Medusa's head, which turns us into stones; and we who were so active and diligent in other duties less necessary, when these call upon us to move, are lame, and impotent; we who before had the feet of Hinds, can move no more than he did who lay so long by the pool side. In the second book of the Kings, 
John 5.  Chap. 5. the Prophet Elisha bids Naaman the Leper, Go wash in Jordan seven times, and thou shalt be clean, but Naaman was worth, and thought that may be done with the stroke or touch of a Prophet's hand; at the ver. 11. Are not Abanah and Pharpar, rivers of Damascus, better than all the rivers of Israel? But the Servants were wiser than the Master, and truly told him, that what the Prophet enjoined was no great thing, for it was But this, Wash and be clean. So it was with the Jew, and so it is with us; That which will cure and heal us, we most distaste; 
Tertull. Scorp. c. v.  Nauseat ad Antidotum qui hiat ad venenum, the stomach turns at the Antidote, that is greedy of Poison. What? bid us be Just, and Merciful, and Humble? Will not Sacrifice suffice? Are not our sabbath-days Exercise, our Psalms and Hymns, of force enough to shake the powers of Heaven, and draw down Blessings upon us? Why may he not speak the word and heal us? Why may he not save us by miracle? To be just and honest, will shrink the Curtains of our Tabernacles; to be merciful and liberal, will empty our Chests; to be humble, will lay us in the dust: These are harsh and rugged, hard and unpleasing commands, and beyond our power, impossible 20 be done: Nay rather these are the ebullitions and murmurs of the flesh, the imaginations of corrupt hearts; and therefore the Prophet Micah sets up his But against them, to throw them down and demolish them; Quare formidatis compedes sapientiae? Why are you asraid of the fetters of Wisdom? they are golden fetters, & we are never free, but when we wear them. Why do you startle at his Law? It is a Law that giveth life. Why do you murmur and boggle at that which he requires? Behold he requires nothing But that which is first, possible secondly, easy; thirdly, pleasant and full of delight. He requires BUT to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God.  
And first; The Prophet here doth not bid us do any great thing; He doth not bid us work miracles, and remove mountains, dol that which is beyond our strength; Do that, which you cannot do; do justly, for you cannot do so; be merciful, for you cannot be so; walk humbly before me, though it be impossible you should: God never yet spoke so by any Prophet; for this were to make Gods commands such as Saint Austin tells us those of the Manichees were, not only Nugatoria, light and vain, but Pugnatoria, 
August. de Morib. Manich.  opposite and destructive to themselves; For nothing more destructive and contrary to a Law, then to place it under an impossibility of being kept: For the keeping of a Law is the virtue, and force, and End of a Law, the End for which it is enacted. 'Tis true, God hath now concluded all under sin, and the reason is given, For all have sinned, Rom. 3.23. but the Apostle there delivers it as an instance and matter of Fact, not as a Conclusion drawn out of Necessary principles; be doth not say All must sinne, but All have sinned: for, both the Gentiles might have kept the Law of Nature, and were punished because they did not, as it is plain in the first chapter; and the Jews might have kept that Law which was given to them, as far as God required it; for so we see many of them did, and God himself bore witness from heaven, and hath registered the names of those in his book, who did walk before him with a perfect heart, as of Aza, 2 Chron. 15. of David, that he kept God's Laws, 1 King. 11. of Josias, that he turned not aside neither to the right hand nor to the left; These though they fell into many sins, which yet notwithstanding they might have avoided, (for why might they not by the same assistance fly one sin as well as another?) yet they kept the Law, though not so exactly as God required, yet so far, as that God was pleased to accept it as a full payment. In that hot Contention betwixt the Orthodox and the Pelagians, when the Pelagians, to build up perfection in this life, brought in the Examples of the Saints of God, who either had not broke the Law of God in the whole course of their life, or if they did, did return by Repentance, and afterwards in a constant obedience did persevere unto the end; they found opposition on all Hands, not one being found, who would give this Honour to the best of Saints; but where they urge that this perfection is not impossible, where they speak not the esse, but de posse, and conclude not that it is, but that it may be so; 
Si negaverimus esse posse, & homines libero arbitrio, qui hoc volea●o appetit, & D●i vi●tuti, qui hoc adiuvando essicit, derogabimus. August. de peccat. meritis. & Remis. l. 2. c. 6.  not that any man hath done what God requires, but that he may; Saint Austin himself joins hands with them, Non est eyes continuò incauta temeritate resistendum, etc. we must not be so rash as unwarily to oppose them who say, Man may do what God requires; for if we deny a possibility, we at once derogate from man's will, which may incline to it, and the power, and mercy of God, who by the assistance of his Grace may bring it to pass; so that the great difference between them may seem to be but this; The one thought it possible by the power of Nature, the other by the assistance of Grace, which is mighty in its operation, and may raise us to this height, if we hinder it not; for every stream may rise as high as its spring. Cum Dei adjutorio in nostra potestate consistit, saith Saint Austin often; 
August. Hom. 2.6.12.16.27, etc.  It is in our power to do what he requires, with the help of Grace: God requires nothing above our strength; and certainly we can do what by him we are enabled to do. When Julian the Pelagian, a young man of a ready and pleasant wit, urged Saint Austin with his own Confession, and that he did but dissemble, when with so much art and Eloquence, with such vehemency of spirit he persuaded men to the love of chastity, if they could not, 
August. l. v. cont. jul. Pelag. c. vit.  though they would, preserve and keep themselves undefiled, Saint Augustine makes this reply, Respondeo, me fateri, sed non sicut vos; I confess they may preserve their virgin, (but not as you would have it) by their own power, but by the Help of God's Grace, which must make them willing, and with his Help they may. And what need there then any further Altercation? why should men contend about that in which they cannot but agree? why should they set themselves at such a distance, when they both look the same way? for there are but few, and I am persuaded none, that do so far Pelagianize, as to deny the Grace of God; And then, when God bids us, do this, he that shall put up the question, Whether it be possible to be done? hath no more of Reason, or Revelation to plead for him, than the Pelagian had; for with him, the Law cannot be kept neither without the Help of Grace, nor with it; and so it must lose its name; nor is it a Law; for what Law is that which cannot be kept? I know it was a Decree of a Council at Carthage, That every man ought to pray to God to forgive him his Trespasses: That he ought to speak it, not as out of Humility, but Truly; and I think there are scarce any, that will not willingly subscribe to it, and this Decree may be as unchangeable as those of the Medes and Persians: But yet I do not see any Necessity of fixing this doctrine, of the Impossibility of Doing what God requires, on the Gates of the Temple, or proclaiming it as by the sound of the Trumpet, in the midst of the Great Congregation. For this Petition is put up in especial Relation to sins past, for Ne peccemus, is in order before si peccemus, 1 John 2.1. we are first commanded not to sin, and then follows the supposition, if we sin: so that these two, sinne not, and if you sin, make up this Conclusion, we may, or we may not sin, rather than this, It is impossible to keep to Laws. So then, This petition may be said, Humiliter, humbly, and veraciter, truly, in respect of sins past; but it is neither Truth nor Humility to make God a Liar; to call upon us to do that, which he requires, when he knows we cannot do it; to make him a Tyrant, in cripling us first, and then sending us about his business; In giving us flesh which the spirit cannot Conquer; in letting lose that Lion upon us, which we cannot resist; in leaving us naked to those Temptations which we cannot subdue. No; verax & Fidelis Deus, God is faithful and true, and will not suffer us to be tempted above our strength; 
1 Cor. 10.13.  will not let in an Enemy upon us, which with his assistance (which is ready, if we refuse it not) we cannot overcome: And he is Gracious and merciful; if in the midst of so many Enemies, we chance to slip, and fall with Jonathan in these high places, to reach out his hand, and lift us up again; but with this Proviso, that we look better to our steps hereafter. For he knows of whom he requires it, even of men, and he considers us as men, and remembers whereof we are made: He doth not require we should be as Just and Merciful as he is; God may give us his strength, but he cannot give us his Arm; to be as Just as he; This is more impossible than that which is most impossible, it is impossible to think it; nor doth he look that our Obedience should be as exact as that of the Angels, quorum immortalitas sine ullo malorum metu & periculo constat, whose Happiness is removed from all danger, or Fear of change, saith Lactantius; but he requires an Obedience answerable to our Condition, which may consist both with sin and Error, into which man, as man may sometimes either through inadvertency, or frailty fall into, and yet do what he requires: But then, If this Doctrine were true, That we were Fettered & shackled with an impossibility of doing what he requires, as indeed it hath neither Reason nor Scripture to countenance it, yet sure it cannot without danger be so rudely, and with such zeal and earnestness published, as sometimes it is; nor can it savour of that spiritual wisdom, which is the Salt which every Teacher should have in himself, to urge and press it to the multitude, who are too ready to make an Idol of that serpent which is lifted up to cure them. For how many weak hands, and feeb e knees, and cowardly Hearts hath this made? How willing are we to hear of weakness, and impossibilities, because we would not keep the Law? How oft do we lie down with this Thought, and do nothing, or rather run away with it even against the Law itself, and break it? what polluted, blind, impotent, crippled wretches are we ready to call ourselves? which were indeed a Glorious confession, were it made out of hatred to sin; but most commonly they are sent forth not from a broken, but a hollow heart; and comfort us rather than accuse us; are rather flatteries than aggravations; the oil of sinners, to break their heads, to infatuate them; not to supple their limbs, but benumb them; and they beget no other Resolution in us, but this, Not to gird up our loins, because we are weak; to sin more and more, because we cannot but sin; not to do what God requires, because we have already concluded within ourselves, that it is impossible. To conclude this; The question is not whether we can exactly keep a Law, so as not to fail sometimes as men; for I know no reason why this question should be put up; but whether we can keep it so far forth as God requires, and in his goodness will accept; whether we can be Just, and Merciful, and Humble men? and if this be impossible, then will follow as sad an impossibility of being saved; For the not doing what he requires, is that alone which shuts the Gates of Heaven against us, and cuts of all hope of eternal happiness: and this were to unpeople Heaven; this were a dragon's tail to draw down all the stars, and cast them into hell. But the Saints are sealed, and have this seal, that they did what God required, and it is a thing so far from being impossible, that the Prophet makes but a But of it; It is not impossible, it is but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with our God.  
For secondly, It is so far from being impossible, that it is but an easy duty. My yoke is easy, saith our Saviour, Mat. 11. and my burden light: For 'tis fitted to our necks and shoulders, and is so far from taking from our nature, or pressing it with violence, that it exalts and perfects it. All is in putting it about our necks, and then this yoke is an ornament of Grace, as Solomon's chain about them; and when this burden is laid on, then 'tis not a burden, but our form to quicken us, and our Angel to guide us with delight in all our ways. And this the beloved disciple sucked from his master's bosom, 1 John 5.3. This is the love of God, that we keep his commandments, and his commandments are not grievous; for here is love and hope to sweeten them, and make them easy and pleasant. Nor doth he speak this as an orator, to take them by craft, by telling them that that which he exhorted them to, was neither impossible, nor difficult, and so give force to his exhortation, and make a way for it to enter, and work a full persuasion in them to be obedient to those commands; but as a Logician, he backs and establishes his affirmation with an undeniable reason in the next verse, For whatsoever is bern of God overcometh the world, and so his commandments are not grievous to those who have the true knowledge of God: He that is born of God must needs have strength enough to pass through all hindrances whatsoever, to tread down all Principalities, and Powers, to demolish all imaginations, which set up and oppose themselves, and so make these commands more grievous, than they are in their own nature; and this he strengthens with another reason in the next verse, For he that is born of God, hath the help and advantage of faith, and full persuasion of the power of Jesus Christ, which is that victory which overcometh the world; so that whosoever saith the commandments are grievous, with the same breath excommunicates himself from the Church of Christ, and makes himself an Hypocrite, and pofesses he is that which he is not, a Christian, when Christ's words are irksome and tedious unto him; That he is born of God, when he hath neither the language nor the motion of a child of God; doth not what God requires, but doth the works of another father, the devil. When men therefore pretend they cannot do what God requires, they should change their language, for the truth is, 
Salvian.  they will not for if they would, there were more for them then against them: Totum durum est quicquid imperatur invitis, to an unwilling mind every command carries with it the fearful show of difficulty. 
Muult execrari legom quàm emendari mentew; praecepta odisse quàm vitia.  A wicked man, mavult emendare Deos; quam seipsum, saith Seneca, had rather condemn the Law, then reform his life; rather hate the precept than his sin: Continence is a hard lesson, but to the wanton; Liberality to a Miser; Temperance to a Glutton; Obedience to a factious and rebellious spirit: All these things are hard to him that loves not Christ: but where there is will, there is strength enough, and love is stronger than death. What was sweeter than Manna? what sooner gathered? yet the children of Israel murmured. What more bitter than Hunger and Imprisonment? 
Isid. Palus. 2. cp. 67.  yet Saint Paul rejoiced in them, nay 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, wickedness in its own nature is a troublesome, vexatious thing. Vitia magno coluntur, saith Seneca, scarce any sin we commit, but costs us dear: what more painful than Anger? what more perplexed and tormenting then Revenge? what more entangled than Lust? what can more disquiet us then Ambition? what more fearful than Cruelty? what sooner disturbed than pride? nay further yet; how doth one sin encroach and trespass upon another? I fling off my Pleasure and Honour to make way to my Revenge; I deny my Lust, to further my Ambition; and rob my Covetousness to satisfy my Lust; and forbear one sin to commit another; and so do but versuram facere, borrow of one sin to lay it out on another, binding and losing myself as my corruption leads me, but never at ease. Tell me, which is easier, saith the Father, to search for wealth in the bowels of the earth, nay in the bowels of the poor by oppression, then to sit down content with thy own? night and day to study the world, or to embrace Frugality? to oppress every man or to relieve the oppressed? to be busy in the Market, or to be quiet at home? to take other men's goods, or to give my own? to be full of business for others, or to have no business but for my soul? to be solicitous for that which cannot be done, or to have no other care, but to do what God requires? To do this will cost us no sweat nor labour; we need not go a Pilgrimage, or take any long journey, it will not cost us money, nor enage us to our friends; we need not sail for it, nor plough for it, nor fight for it, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, etc. saith chrysostom, if thou be'st willing, 
Chrysost. orat. de ira.  obedience hath its work and consummation, if thou wilt, 
Arist. l. 4 Eth. c. 3.  thou art Just, Merciful, and Humble. As Aristotle spoke of his Magnanimous man, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, so to a resolved Christian nothing is great, 
Liber & rectus animus omtia subjiciens sin, se nuili. Sen. cp. ult.  nothing is difficult. 'Tis not to dig in the Minerals, or labour in chains, 'tis not to cleave wood, or draw water with the Gibeonites, but thy lines are fallen unto thee in a fair place, 'tis but to do Justly, love Mercy, etc.  
Lastly, it is not only easy, but sweet and pleasant to do what God requires; For Obedience is the only spring from whence these waters of comfort flow; it is an everlasting foundation on which alone joy and peace will settle and rest. For what place canst thou find? what other foundation on which thou mayst build up a true and lasting joy? wilt thou look on all the works which thy hands have wrought? wilt thou prove thy heart with mirth, and gather together all that is , and say here it will lie? All that joy will soon be exhausted, and will draw itself dry: That pleasure is but like that beast of the Apothecary, to whom Julian the Pelagian likens Saint Austin, 
Non sum similis p●arm ●copolae, ut●d 'tis, qui promit tebat Bestiam quae seipsam com sset. August. Cont. jul. Pelag. l. 3. c. 21.  which he promised his patient of great virtue; which before the morning was come, had eaten up himself. But the doing what God requires, our conformity to his will is the only basis upon which such a superstructure will rise, and tower up as high as heaven, for it hath the will and power of God to uphold and perpetuate it, against all those storms and tempests which are sent out of the devil's treasury to blast or embitter it. Do you take this for a speculation and no more? Indeed it is the sin and the punishment of the men of this world to take those truths which most concern them, for speculations, for the groundless conceptions of thoughtful men, for school subtleties, rather than realities: Mammon and the world have the preeminence in all things, and spiritual ravishments and heaven itself are but ingens fabula, & magnum mendacium, as a tedious , or a long tale that is told. And there is no reason of this, but their disobedience; for would they put it to the trial, deny themselves and cleave to the Lord, and do what he desires, there would then be no need of any Artist, or Theologue to demonstrate it, or fill their mouth with arguments to convince them of the truth of that which would so fill their souls. Of all the Saints and Martyrs of God that did put it to the trial, did we ever read that any did complain that they had lost their labour? but upon a certain knowledge and sense of this truth, betook themselves cheerfully to the hardship of mortification, renounced the world, and laid down their lives; poured out their blood for that truth, which paid them back again with interest, even with fullness of joy. Let us then hearken what this Lord will say, and answer him in every duty which he requires, and he will answer us again, and appear in glory, and make the terrors and flatteries of the world, the object not of our fear and amazement, but contempt; and the displeasing and worse side of our obedience, our Crown and Glory, the most delightful thing in the world; for (to conclude this) why are we afraid? why should we tremble at the commands of God? why should their sound be so terrible in our ears? The Lord requires nothing of us, but that which first is possible, to rouse us up to attempt it; secondly, which is easy, to comfort and nourish our hopes; and thirdly, which is pleasant and delightful to do, to woe and invite, and even flatter us to obedience, and to draw us after him with the cords of men. And what doth he require, but to do justly, and love mercy? etc.  
We have now taken a view of the substance of these words, 
The Application and Conclusion.  and we have looked upon them in the form and manner in which they lie; what doth the Lord require? let us now draw them nearer to us; for to this end they are sharpened into an interrogation, that as darts they might pierce through our souls, and so open our eyes to see, and our ears to hearken to the wonders of his Law.  
And first; this word Lord is a word of force and efficacy, and strikes a reverence in us, and remembers us of our duty and allegiance; for if he be the Lord, then hath he an absolute will, a will which must be a rule to regulate our wills by his Jubeo and his vete, by his commands and prohibitions; by removing our wills from unlawful objects, and confining them to that which may improve and perfect them; from that which is pleasing but hurtful, to his Laws and commands, which are first distasteful, and then fill them with joy unspeakable. And this is the true mark and character of a servant of God, to be then willing, when in a manner he is unwilling; to be strong when the flesh is weak; to have no will of his own, nor any other spring of spiritual motion, but the will of his Lord. And therefore as he is the Lord over all, so are his Laws over all Laws; as to him every knee must bow, so to his Laws all the Laws of men must yield and give place, which are no further Laws, or can lay any tye or obligation, but as they are drawn from his, and wait upon them, and are subservient to them; common reason will tell us, and to that the Apostles Peter and John appeal, when the rulers of the Jews commanded them to speak no more in the name of Christ, 
Act. 4.18,19.  whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto you more than to God, judge you; for we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard, and we cannot but be obedient, for the Lord requires it. When Creon the Tyrant in Euripides asked Antigone, how she dared to bury her brother Polynices, when he had enacted a Law to the contrary, her answer was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, etc. that this was not Jupiter's Law, and that she buried her brother, in obedience to a Law more ancient than that of the Tyrants, even to the Law of nature, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, for this Law was not of yesterday, but eternal, and I ought not for fear of any man to break the Law of God and nature. And what better answer can a Christian make to all unlawful commands, either of those we love, or of those we fear? 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, etc. God hath not enacted these, I see more of the claw of the devil, than finger of God in these; these are Novellae institutionis, but of yesterday; the breathe, and dictates, it may be, of Lust and Covetousness, of Pride and Ambition, and I must not consider what man, what this man, this Lord or this Potentate, but what the Lord of Lords, and King of Kings requires at my hands; when his Laws are published, all others must be silent, or as little harkened to, as if they were; as when the Sun appears the stars are not seen, nor seen at any time, but with that light which they borrow from it.  
For again, as he is Lord Paramount, and hath an absolute will, so his will is attended with Power, with that Power, which made thee; and he did not make thee a man, that thou shouldest make thyself a beast of burden, to couch under every load which the hand of a Pharisee will be ready to lay upon thee; He did not make thee capable of a Law, that thou shouldest keep the Laws of the flesh, or of men; he did not publish his will, that upon this or that pretence thou shouldest resist it; that the fear of a frown, and the love of the world should be stronger, and prevail with thee more than his will. For if thou wilt not do what he requires, he will not do what thou expectest, but leave thee to thy choice, to those new Lords and Masters under the same wrath and curse to walk delicately along with them to that vengeance, which will fall upon the heads of those who will not hearken to this Lord.  
For thirdly, by the same power he preserves and protects thee, which all power that is over us doth not; for then the thief may be said to protect him he robs; the strong; man may be said to protect him he binds; the oppressor him whom he hath eaten up; and Cain to have protected Abel, when he knocked out his brains: But the Power of God is a saving and preserving power, and under the shadow of his wing we shall be safe; and to this end he spreads his wing over us, he guides and holds us up, that we may walk before him in all obedience, in the land of the living; who bowing to his will against our lust, anon against our Ambition, against all those machinations and temptations, which press upon us to break his will, even whilst we are under his wing. What should a wanton, what should an oppressor, a man of Belial do under his wing? And yet we see many times they play and revel it in the shadow, when they that do his will are beaten with the tempest, and yet are safer there than they are in their Paradise; are the miracles of his Providence to be manifested at last to all the world. 'Tis true, The wicked are in some sort under his wing, for he upholds, and continues them, prolongs their days; and if an eye of flesh may judge, they are the greatest favourites of this Lord; and if the world were heaven, they were the only Saints: But the spiritual man judgeth all things, and to his eye they are but a sad and rueful spectacle, as condemned men led with music to execution; for he preserves and protects them not otherwise then he doth serpents, and vipers, and beasts of prey; he upholds them not otherwise then he doth the earth, and the devils, and hell itself, which he preserves for them, as he reserves them for it, as Saint Judas speaks in his Epistle, v. 5. and then as Abraham said to the rich man, Son, Remember, thou in thy life time receivedst thy good things; so shall this Lord to these, to a Cain, to a Nimrod, an Ahab, an Pharisee, a Hypocrite; Remember you were under my wing, under my protection, and remember what you did there, how you beat your fellow-servants, how you stripped one, dispossessed another, killed a third; how even then when you were under my wing, when I upheld and preserved you, you said in your hearts, there was not God. This is a fearful and hideous change, like the fall of Lucifer, only he fell from heaven indeed, these from an Imaginary one, a heaven built up with a thought; but both fall into the same place. O then since he made us, since in him we live, and move, and have our being, let us live unto this Lord, let our motion be regular; and let us be what he would have us be; let it be our wisdom to follow him in those ways which his infinite wisdom hath drawn out for us; let our love be the echo of his love; this wisdom is from above, and this love is kindled from the coal of a cherubin, is a fire from heaven kindled in our hearts, and it will lick up all fluid and unbounded desires in us. Let us remember, that he hath endowed us with faculty and ability to do what he requires; that he hath committed and entrusted this unto us for this end, that he doth now, as it were, Manu suâ tenere debitores, that he hath us in his power, obliged and bound fast unto him by this his gift, as by an instrument or bond; 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is the Apostles word, Rom. 3.3. and it is the very word which the Civilians use, he hath committed an entrusted his commandments, and requires something of us; and as he that entrusts his money doth not lost the propriety of it, no more doth God of that substance, of our intellectual and practic faculties, which he hath put into our hands; he hath not passed them over to us, as a free and absolute gift, but left them only negotiari dum venerit, to traffic with and improve till he come. For in receiving the Law, and will and faculty to observe it, 
Arist. Eth. 5.  we make a kind of contract with God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, saith Arist. for the Law itself is a kind of contract or covenant, because he that comes under a Law hath bound himself to keep it. Let us remember then, that we come under many obligations; I cannot name the several ways we stand obliged to this Lord; we may comprehend all in that axiom of the Civilians, Tota obligationes presumuntur quot sunt scripturae, we have as many engagements and obligations, as there be instruments and writings betwixt us; and there are as many, as there be precepts and commands, which are the best helps to promote us to perfection. Let us then provide against the day of trial; for not to keep covenant with him, but when he comes to make inquisition whether we have done what he required, to present him with nothing but shows, but good intentions, but drowsy endeavours, and feeble wishes; when he comes to ask for his talon to show him a napkin, is a plain forfeiture of our obligation, and brings us under a worse and heavier, binds us over to punishment. Let us then ever fix our eye upon our obligation; let us consider that he made us, that he upheld and protected us, and so had power to oblige us and bind us to him by a Law; let us admire his wisdom, and embrace his love; let this double chain, the strong Iron chain of his infinite power and universal dominion; the glorious and golden thain of his superabundant love, bind and tie us unto him; and when all other creatures are ready to bow at God's beck, and follow constantly in that way which nature hath allotted them, and do seldom or never turn aside; when the Sun knows his setting, and the Moon her seasons, let not us forget our station and place, but answer this Lord in every command, as the Roman Centurions did their Emperors, Factum est, Imperator, quod jussisti; Behold thou art our Lord, and we have done what thou requirest.  
And in the last place; let us not set up these mountains in our way of difficulty, or irksomeness or impossibility, and then faint and lie down, and settle our selves upon our lees, and wallow in our own blood upon a groundless fear that there is no passing out; for why should we pretend and plead difficulty and impossibility, when we ourselves are an argument against ourselves, and our own practice every day confutes us? For how do we every day make a surrendry of our wills to those who have will indeed, and proclaim their will, but have neither might, nor wisdom, nor love to attend it? Ibo, licèt invita faciam omnia, saith the woman in the Comedy; 
Plaut. Mil. Glor. Act. 4. sc. 8.  I will go although Igo against my will. To rise up early and lie down late are nothing pleasing to us, yet for that which a wiseman contemns, for a little pelf, we will do it. To wait attendance, to bow, and crings, and make great men Gods, to give him a leg, whom we wish on the gallows, to engage ourselves for the hardest task, to be diminished and brought low, to sweat, and fight, and die, cannot be delightful to flesh and blood, yet for honour we will do it. But then how do we debauch our understandings and wits, and bury them in other men's wills as in a Sepnlchre, there to rot and stink amidst those corrupt and loathsome imaginations, which are as wings to carry them to their unwarrantable ends? how ready are we to conclude that to be true, which we know to be false, that to be lawful, which our conscience condemns? It was a sin, It is now a duty; It was as abomination, it is now a sign of Election; It was oppression, Power hath set a mark upon the innocent, and it is justice; It was an Idol, 'tis now our God; It was a devil, a black and ugly fiend, 'tis now an Angel of light. Thus we can ad omnem occursum majoris cujusque personae decrescere, as Tertullian speaks, shrink ourselves in, and are in a manner annihilated at the appearance of any greater person; and when these Sons of Anak show themselves, we are but grasshoppers, we are fools, or slaves, or worse, any thing, or nothing, even what they will have us. We are led captive according to the will of others, and according to the will of our greatest enemy, and become the devils enchanters, to make that appear which is not, that seem white, which is black, and that good, which is evil; and the devils musicians, setting and tuning our notes, our words and looks and actions to his will and pleasure; nay, the devil's fiddles to be wound up or let down to any pin or note, to which the hand of greatness or power will set us; we are as so many looking-glasses which reflect and present the actions of men in power back upon themselves, laughing when they laugh, and weeping when they weep, striking as they strike, planting as they plant, and plucking up as they pluck up; doing in all as they do; when they are weary and faint & falling to the ground along with them; and all this to gain our peace, or as the Apostle tells the Galatians, cap. 6.12. lest we should suffer persecution for the Cross of Christ. I urge this by way of instance, and exprobration, to show that the denial of our own will is not a thing of such difficulty as 'tis thought, that we may do that for God's cause, which we do for our own; that we may do that for him, that we do for our lust, unless we shall so far dishonour God and ourselves as to make that most inglorious and false confession, that we can do nothing but that which is evil, and have strength to do nothing, but that which will ruin us; and so conclude against heaven and our own souls, that we are good for nothing but damnation. I have much wondered, that men should be so willing to publish their weakness and disability in this, and in other things to hid and mask it as they do their sin; that they should be ready to brand him with the name of Heretic, that shall tell them, they may be Just and Honest men, if they will; that God will assist them, if they put him not from them; and yet be as forward to be Parasites to that Parasite, and reward him that shall commend their prudence, and dextrous activity in the affairs of this world, as if they were made for this world, and no other, and made able to raise a bank here, but not to lay up for themselves any treasure in heaven. Why should it be thought a thing incredible, that God should raise the dead? saith Saint Paul, Act. 26. why should any man think it impossible to do the will of God? It is easier for a Camel to go through the eye of a needle, then for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of heaven: True, whilst he trusts in his riches. And 'tis impossible for an unclean person to enter there; true, till he make himself an eunuch for that kingdom: but is it impossible for a rich man be made poor in spirit? is it impossible for a wanton to make a covenant with his eyes? Our Saviour hath fully determined that, That with men it is impossible, but with God all things are possible, Matth. 19.26. possible for him in the barrenest ground to plant and gather sruit; out of any crooked piece of wood to make a Mercury, a statue for himself: and this comnipotency of God is referred not only to the giving a being to all things, but in fitting those helps and furtherances of Piety, which may enable and promote us in the performance of our duty, as Saint Paul speaks Phil. 4.13. I can do all things through Christ that strengtheneth me; who if we call upon him with that sincere fervour and humility, which our weakness and his Majesty requires, is ready at hand; ready by his power and assistance, to preserve the rich safe from the contagion of wealth, and the snare of the devil; and to purge the unclean person, and to keep him from the foolish woman, and the door of her house. Why, why shouldest thou lay so unjust an imputation upon so just and merciful a Lord? God is not as man, that he should lie; God is not as man, that he should bid us do what we cannot do. Such indeed is our miserable condition under the sons of men, under those who are built up of the same mould and earth which we are. Many times our superiors grow wanton; and as they can be angry for no other reason, but because they will be angry, so they will command, to show their power; tell us we are Idle, when we are impotent; give us such commands, as the devils was to the men of Delos, to double his Altar, to double a cube or square, which hath troubled the wits of all ages to find out; and shall we fancy such a God unto ourselves? This were at once to divest him of his Majesty and goodness, 
Prodigiosum oraculum hoc suit, liberatum iri Delios malis praesentibus, si aram Deli duplicasseat. Plut. de urb. Theb. & Socratis Doemon.  and take him from his throne; first to slander and blaspheme him, and then break his Law, and comfort ourselves in our rebellion.  
Nay rather, let God betrue, and all men be liars; for he requires of us no more, than we can do: And, to conclude, when we cannot do it, he requires but the will, and as it is a great sin nolle cùm possis, not to be willing when thou canst do it, so is it a great virtue velle cùm non possis, to be willing when thou canst not do it: And thus I may be poor when I am rich; I may be liberal when I do not give; and I may be humble in a triumph; 
Praestat op●ribus volunt as. Hilar. in Ps. 128. Saepe honorata virtus est, ubi eam impellit exitus. Sen. Contro. c. 4.7.  I may do what I do not, for with God to will is to do, because when our hands are bound, that is left free, nor hath man or devil any power over it. Persecution may seal up the Church doors, yet I may love the place where his honour dwelleth; power may seal up my lips, yet I may say with David, my heart, my heart is prepared, and my prayers are loud, when they are not heard, and I am heard though I cannot speak: I may pray with the tongue, and I may pray with the spirit, and I may pant forth those prayers which I must not say; I may do what God requires, when I have neither mouth, nor tongue, nor hand; For what doth he require? that which a man hath, and not that which he hath not; that which thou canst do, and that which thou mayest do with ease, and that which thou mayest do with delight: Here are these three; first, 'tis possible, secondly easy, thirdly delightful; and these are as those wings, Ezek. 1.9. joined one to another, and carrying us straight forward towards the mark; these are as the wheels v. 16. and on these our Obedience may move on in an even and constant course, till we are brought to our journey's end, even to that place of rest, which is prepared for all those who are ready to hearken and do what the Lord requires. We pass now to the particulars, etc.    

 blazon or royal coat of arms of England and Wales HONI ●…T QVI MAL Y PENSE  
The Four and Twentieth SERMON.  

PART FOUR  MICAH 7.8. 
He hath showed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, etc.  
WE have seen what this Good is, for it is shown unto us and we have beheld it in the commanding form, and power of a Law; for God requires it, who, as he made the whole world for man, so he made man for himself, and bound him to that which might make him free; to walk at liberty in those paths which lead unto that happiness, which is with him for evermore. We compared it to the tree of life, and the heart of man is the Paradise, the soil wherein it must grow; and it is so a celestial Paradise, a Paradise of the purest and sincerest delights, when this Good is planted and well rooted in it. We have taken a survey of it in its generality, as it were in the bulk, and body, and substance of it; we descend now to particulars; to gather some fruit from the parts and branches of it, which are three; first, Justice or Honesty; secondly, the Love of Mercy; thirdly, an Humble and reverend deportment, and walking with our God.  
And the first is Justice or Honesty, which is a smooth, and straight, and even branch, and we reap the fruit thereof in peace: To do justly is but one, but it spreads itself, and in its full latitude takes in all the duties of our life; For we are no sooner men, but we are debtors, under obligations to God, to men, and ourselves: The Apostle in the 1 to the Thessalonians 2.10. comprehends all in three words, you are witnesses how holily, andjustly, and unblamably we behaved ourselves amongst you; first, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, how Holily in relation to God, for we are bound to him as Sons, to Honour him; as subjects, to obey him; as servants, to do his will; in brief, to be Holy as he is Holy: secondly, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, how justly in respect of men; For we are not left at large, but as there is a relation of man to God, so there is of one man to another: All men are bound to every man, and every man is bound to all; there is an instrument and obligation drawn between them, a kind of counterbond to secure one from the other, and it is written and sealed up in every heart, and by the hand of God himself, To do to others, as we would have others to do to us, if men would be but men, would be, what it was made for, the security of the whole world: thirdly, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, how unblamably in respect of himself, and his personal conversation; for (though we sacrse believe it, or consider it as little as if it were not true) we ourselves are bound unto ourselves, and in all the assaults we make either against God or our neighbour, the first injury we do is to ourselves; we are bound to our bodies, not to make them the instruments and weapons of unrighteousness; and we are bound to our souls, not to pawn or sell them to our lusts; we are bound to our flesh, as a magistrate is in his office, to beat it down and subdue it, and so rule and govern it; and we are bound to our reason, not to enslave it, or place it under the vanities of this world; and if we break these obligations, we are the first that rise up against ourselves; the first man that condemns a finner is the sinner himself, se judice nemo nocens absolvitur; In himself he bears about with him a court, a seat of Justice, from which no appeal lies; his Reason is his Judge, his Conscience is his accuser, and he himself is his own prisoner, and he crucifies and hangs himself up every day, though no foreign authority arrest him. And these three are linked together as in a chain; For when we make good our obligations to God and ourselves, we never fail in that which is due unto men; and he that fails in doing justly to men, hath ipso facto forfeited his obligation to God and himself; for to do justly is a duty which he owes to God and himself as well as to others: he that is not just, is not holy, and he that is not holy is an enemy to God and himself; for God made him to this end, and God requires it at his hands; so that an unjust man at once breaks this threefold cord, and is injurious to God, to men, and himself: If we miss in one, we are lost in all, and are in a manner outlawed from men, banished from ourselves, and so without God in this world.  
We have a large field here to walk in, but we must limit and confine ourselves, and pass by the justice of the public Magistrate, whose proper work it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, stand in the midst between two opposite sides, till he draw them together, and make them one; to keep an equality, even in inequality; to use his power, rescindendo peccatori, in cutting off the wicked from the earth, and taking the prey out of his mouth, or else communi dividundo, in dividing to every man his own possessions, in giving Mephibosheth his own Lands; for this is neither meant here in the text, nor can it concern this Auditory. Read the 10, 11, 12. v. of this chapter, and you will see what Justice it is the Prophet here speaks of. 10. Are there yet treasures of wickedness in the house of the wicked, and the scant measure, that is abominable? 11. Shall I count them pure with the wicked balances, and with the bag of deceitful weights? 12. For the rich men thereof are full of violence, and the inhabitants thereof have spoken lies, and their tongue is deceitful in their mouth. Is there yet the house of the wicked built by oppression, and cemented with blood, and will he not restore what he hath unjustly gained, after so many warnings and threats? Adhuc ignis in domo Impii? so the vulgar: Is there yet a fire in the house of the wicked? not a Treasure, but a Fire, which will consume all? so that Facere judicium, to do justly in this place, is not only the duty of the magistrate (and yet public Justice is both a serpent and a rod, not only to by't and sting the guilty person, but a rod or measure, to measure out to every man his own measure) but to do justly is to give every man his own, not to lay hold on, or alienate or deceitfully withdraw, or violently force from any man that of which he is a lawful possessor for quicqutd jure possidetur, injuriâ aufertur, that which I possess by right, cannot be taken from me but by injury. And this is it which we call common honesty, or private Justice, and it binds my hand from oppression and robbery; it seals up my lips from guile and slander; it checks and fetters my fancy from weaving those Nets of Deceit which may catch my Brother and entangle him; it limits my Hands, my Wit, my Tongue, not to do, not to imagine, not to speak that which may endamage him; not to touch, not to undermine his estate; not to touch, not to wound his reputation; for Slander is a great injustice, a kind of Murder, jugulans non membra, sed nomina, saith Optatus to the Donatists, not cutting off a limb or member, but mangling and defacing a good and fair name, and even treading it in the dirt. Private Justice is of a far larger extent then that which is Public, and speaks and acts from the Tribunal: For Public Justice steers by no other Compass but the Laws of Men; but this by the Laws of Nature, and Charity, which forbidden many things which the Laws of Men mention not; and restrain us there, where Humane Authority leaves us in nostro mancipio, to dispose of ourselves as we please; Nec enim, quicquid honestum est, legibus praecipitur, for this Justice and Honesty binds us to that which no Law exacts; for Lawgivers are not Diviners or Prophets, and they see little more than what is passed by them already, or now before their eyes, or which Probability hath brought so near, that they even see it, as a thing, which, if not prevented, will certainly come to pass. They have not the knowledge of all that is possible, nor of all things that are under the differences of times past, present, and to come; nor can they fathom the depth, and deceitfulness of their own hearts, much least of the hearts of other men, which are fruitful in evil, and every day find out new inventions, and multiply them every day: For as Saint Austin spoke of the Lawyers of his time, 
Angust deved. Dan. Imm. 19  Nulla Causa sine causa, There was not a Cause brought to them, which they could not so handle, as that it should multiply in their hands, and beget as many as they pleased; so there is no fraudulent act, 
Usu ●…atum est 〈◊〉 apu 〈…〉, etc. Thras. Paet. apod Ta●…t. Annal. 15.  which is not a step to another, and that to a third, and that is now a teeming, ready to bring forth more; Depunge ubi sistam; Injustice hath the same subsistence and measures with our Covetousness and Lust, and that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, knows neither bounds nor end; So that those Laws by which Humane Societies are managed and upheld, are rather occasioned by that which is past, then that which is to come; and they that make them take their aim by their eye, and some sensible inconvenience, which is either visible in itself, or in that which may cause it, but cannot provide against that which is removed so far, as that neither the eye, nor thoaght, neither wisdom, nor suspicion can reach it, but is to them as if it would never be; in that darkness and obscurity, which it was before they were born. And therefore the rule of those duties which we own one to anothyer, is of a larger extent then that of the Law, 
S●n. 2. ale Ira. c. 27.  Angusta est innocentia ad legem probum esse, saith the Philosopher, that honesty is but of a narrow compass which measures itself out by that rule, and reacheth no further than to that point which the Laws of men have set up, and makes that its Non ultra. 
Fost. verb. Pictas.  Piety constrains us to do many things, where the Law leaves us free; what Law did force that pious Daughter to suckle her old Father in prison, and nourish him with the milk from her own breasts? 
Sp●ritanus.  or Antonine the Emperor to lead his aged Father-in-law, and ease and support him with his hand? Again Humanity binds us, where the Law is silent; for where was it enacted, 
Hun●…nit●…tis es●…quae. lamb nes●… velle.  that we should not open the letters no not of our enemies? yet Julius Caesar burned those which he found in their tents, whom he had conquered; and the Athenians and Pompey did the like. Liberality hath no Law, and yet it is a debt. 
Beati divites, quiet caeteris prodesse possunt & achent. Alcint. de verb. Sigaifificat. Fides & juramentum aequiparam 7, thoc serva i●…h●t, Ua & illa. Menoch. cap. 367.  No law enjoins me to keep my promise and make good my faith, and yet my promise binds me as firmly, and should be as sacred as an oath. All these are extra publicas tabulas, and are not to be found in our statutebooks; and he that confines his studies and endeavours to these; he that hath no other compass to steer by in the course of his life, then that which he there finds written, cannot take this honour to himself, this Honourable title of a Just and Honest man. For how many inventions and wiles have men found out to act iniquity, as by a Law? to drive the proprietary out of his possessions, before the Sun and the people, and then wipe their mouths, and proclaim it as Just to all the world? How many Eat no other Bread but that which is kneaded by craft and oppression, and sometimes with blood, and yet count it as Manna, sent down from Heaven? How short is the hand of the Law to reach these? Nay how doth the Law itself many times enable them to invade the Territories of others, and to riot it at pleasure? How is it made their music, by which they dance in other men's blood? Justice, 
Consensere jura p●ceatis, etc. Cypl. ad Donat.  or common Honesty, is but one word, but of a larger compass than Ambition and Covetousness are willing to walk in. In a word; I 'tmaymay not be just and Honest, and yet there may be no Law to punish it, 
Cicer. 2. de Fimb. 93. Lex Stagaritarum 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Ae●ian. var. H●st. l. 3. c. 46. Clem. Alex. 2. strom. 398. Dolus quidam in contractu est non indicare crronem. Hermias a pud Damas' in Plut. Bibl.  or no man that dare reprehend it, saith ●ully. Take not up that which thou laidst not down; count that which thou findest in the way, but as a pledge to be returned upon demand, said the Stagarites. If thou sell a thing, declare the fault of it; If thou underbuy a thing, upon the discovery, pay the full price. These no Humane Law, but Justice and Honesty, and the Law of nature requires. To collect and draw out a catalogue of all those irregularities in Behaviour which will not consist with Justice and Honesty, as it is a thing not necessary to be done, so is it impossible to do it: for as day unto day teacheth the knowledge of that which is good, so day unto day, and hour unto hour teacheth the knowledge of that which is evil, and it is not easy to open those Mysteries of iniquity. The mind of man, when it is corrupted, is restless in finding out new, and untrodden paths which may lead to its desired end, and is wheeled about from one falsehood to another, begets a second lie to defend the first, and draws in cheat upon cheat, that it may have at least the shadow of Justice and Honesty to veil and obscure it; and so long he is an Honest man that is not a detected knave, as he is counted a good Lawyer, who can find out something in fraudem legis, some handsome colour or fetch to delude the Law. He that hath the sentence on his side, is Just, and he that is fallen from his cause, is fallen from the truth; and so honesty is bound up in the verdict of the Jury, and twelve perjured men may make an oppressor honest, when they please.  
We will not therefore go in Hue and Cry after every thief, nor follow the deceitful person in those rounds, in those wind and turn which he makes; and I can truly say, non multùm incola fuit anima mea, I have been but a stranger and sojourner in these tents of Mesech, and have not so much conversed in these ways of thrift, and arts of living, as to read a lecture upon them, and discover the Method and course of them. It may so fall out, and doth too often, that they who are the best artists in these, are the worst of men; For the wisdom of this world is not like that in Aristotle, which rests in itself, and never seeks an other end, but in this the theory and the practice go hand in hand, and advance one another: nor do we make use of it only to preserve and defend ourselves, but we let it out to disquiet and diminish others; and they that tread these hidden and indirect ways, though they hid themselves from others, yet seldom do they so far deceive themselves, as not to know they walk deceitfully: for they check, and comfort themselves at once; they know they do not justly, and yet this thought sets them forward in their course, even this poor and unworthy thought, that It is good to be rich; and so the light which they see is somewhat offensive, but the love of gain is both a provocative, and a cordial.  
We will therefore bring Justice to the line, and Righteousness to the plummet, and have recourse to the Law and the Prophets; not stand gazing upon the practice of the world, and actions of men, but look upon the rule, by which a diligent eye may easily discover all particular swervings and deviations, though they be as many as the Atoms before the Sun: For as Seneca well, Difficile est animam suam effugere, It is a hard matter for a man to fly from himself, or to divest himself of those principles with which he was born, or so to fling them from him, as that they shall never return to restrain and curb him, or at least to molest him when his flesh and lusts are wanton, and unruly, and violent to break their bounds. And now, what doth the Lord require But to do justly? That is, but to do that, which first, the Law of nature requires; secondly, that which he at sundry times by holy men, and his Prophets hath taught, and in the last days hath urged and improved by his Son Christ Jesus, the Prince of Peace and righteousness. So that Justice doth raise itself upon these two pillars, Nature and Religion, which are like the two pillars in the porch of the Temple, 1 Kings 7.20. Jachin and Boaz, and do strengthen and establish Justice, as that doth the pillars of the earth, or as the legs of the bridegroom in the Canticles 5.15. which were as pillars of marble set upon sockets of pure gold: for the wisdom and strength of Christ and Christianity consists in the adorning and improving of Nature, and settling a true and perfect Religion, and the sockets, the bases are of pure gold, Basis aurea timor plenus disciplinae, saith Ambrose, the golden Basis which upholds all, is a well disciplined fear, by which we walk with circumspection, and carefully observe the Law of nature, and the Law of Christ; and by the Law of nature, and the brighter and clearer light of Scripture, so steer our course, that we dash not against thosedangerous rocks of deceit and violence, of oppression and wrong, that we may not spem nostram alienis miseriis inaugurare, not increase ourselves by diminishing others; not rise by another man's ruin; not be enriched by another man's loss; not begin and inaugurate, and crown our hopes and desires with other men's miseries; nor bath ourselves with delight in the tears of the widow and the fatherless; but rather suffer wrong then do it, rather lose out coat, then take away our brothers; vitamque impendere vero, rather lose that we have, and life itself, than our honesty; and so by being Men, and by being Christians, full fill all right eousnesse.  
And first, Nature itself hath hewn and squared all Mankind as it were out of the same Quarry and Rock; hath built them up out of the same Materials, into a Body and Society, into a City compact within itself: For the whole world is but as one City, and all the men therein, in respect of mutual offices of love, are but of one Corporation. Respicite zur. Es. 5.1. Look unto the rock out of which you were hewn, and the hole of the pit where you were digged: Look unto the common seed-plot, out of which you were all extracted, and there you shall discover that near Relation and Fraternity, that makes every man a Neighbour, a Brother to Every man: how they are not only together Children of Corruption, and kin to the worm and Rottenness, but the same workmanship of an immortal hand and an illimited power; the Brethren of one Bather who hath built them up in his image, and according to his likeness, which though it may be more resplendent, more improved in one then in another, yet it is that impression which is made and stamped on all. From the same rock are hewed out the weak and feeble man, and Is the man of strength, who hath milk in his breasts, and marrow in his bones; From the same hand is that face we turn away from, and that face we so much gaze on; the scribe and the Idiot, the narrow understanding that receives little, and the active and piercing wit, which runs to and fro the earth; that plain simple man that hath no ends, and the subtle Politician, who multiplies his every day, and can compass them all. Of the same extraction are the purple Gallant, and the Russet Pilgrim; and he that made them casts an equal eye on them all, and binds every hand from violence, and every heart from forging deceit; makes every man a guard and protection to every man; gives every man a guard and conduct for himself and others; and to every man the word is given, touch not another, and do him no harm. Thus hath he fenced us in and taken care, that the strong man bind not the weak; that the scribe overreach not the Idiot; that the Politician supplant not the innocent; that the experienced man defraud not the ignorant; but that every man's strength, and wit, and experience, and wisdom should be advantageous, and not hurtful to others; that so the weak man may be strong with another man's strength; and the ignorant man wise with another's experience; and the Idiot be secured by the wisdom of the Scribe. For who hath made all these? have not I the Lord? and than if he made them, and linked them together in one common tye of nature, quis discernet? as the Apostle speaks, 1 Cor. 4.7. who shall divide and separate them? who shall divide the rich and the poor, that he should set him at his footstool and despise him? The strong from the weak, that he should beat him to the ground? The wise from the ignorant, that he should bassie and deceive him? Indeed sme distance, some difference, some precedency of one before the other may show itself to an eye of flesh; but yet even an eye of flesh may see how to reunite and gather them together as on and the same in their Original: Respicite zur, Look unto the rock, the vein out of which you were taken, and then what Moses spoke to the Israelites when they strove together, may be spoken to all the men in the world, Sirs, you are brethren, why do you defraud, or use violence? why do you wrong one to another? Acts 7.26  
But in the next place; Besides this our common extraction, the God of Nature, who hath built us out of the same materials, hath also imprinted those Principles, those Notions, those Inclinations in the heart of every man, which may be as so many Buttresses and supporters to uphold this frame, and to make us dwell together in all simplicity and innocency of conversation; not in envy and malice, in fraud and deceit, but with courtesy and affability, helping and supporting one another, which is that justice which God requires at our hands: Nulla anima sine crimine, quia nulla sine Boni semine, saith Tertullian, No soul can plead Not guilty here, because no soul is destitute of this seed of Goodness. And thus we see in Rom. 1. where Saint Paul makes up that catalogue of foul irregularities, he drags the unrighteous, the covetous, the malicious, the deceitful, the inventors of evil things, the Covenant-breakers, to no other Tribunal then that of Nature, and condemns them by no other Law then that which we brought with us into the world. Quaedam jura non scripta, sed omnibus scriptis certiora, saith the Orator. This Law is not written, 
S●nce. Contr. S●loms Lges lign●is aribus incisae Gell. l. 2. c. 12.  and therefore is written to all; and being connatural to us, is more sure and infallible than those which are written in wood, or engraven in Brass or Marble. And one would think that it were as superfluous and needless to make any other Law to bind us to Justice and upright dealing one towards another, as to command children to love their parents, or parents to be indulgent to their children: For why should that be urged with that vehemency, to which men's natural bend and inclination carries them, and would certainly continue them, and hold them up in an even course of justice and honesty, did not Education, and their familiar converse and dalliance with the world, corrupt and blind them? To this Law of Nature S. James seems to call us back, chap. 3.9. where he makes it as a strange thing to be wondered at, That the same tongue that blesseth God, should yet curse men, who are made after the similitude of God. As if he should have said, Curse him not, deceive him not; for if thou curse him, if thou deceive him, thou cursest and deceivest God, after whose similitude he is made. My brethren, these things ought not be, and are as much against nature, as for the same fountain to send forth sweet and bitter water, or for a figtree to bear olives, or a vine figs, at the 12. ver. Saint Paul in the 4. to the Ephesians, shuts up the Liars mouth with the same argument, ver. 25. Wherefore cast off lying, and speak truth every one to his neighbour: and the Reason follows, For you are members one of another. Thou art a part of him, and he is a part of thee, being both hewn out of the same Rock, form and shaped of the same mould, and by lying to thy Brother, thou put est a cheat upon thyself, and as far as in thee lieth, upon that GOD that made you both, and gave you Tongues, not to lie, but to instruct; and Wits, not to deceive, but counsel and help one another. And therefore in the 1 Thess. 4.6. he deters them from fraud and violence, by no other argument than this, That God is the avenger of such things, as if the Lie had been told, and the Cheat put upon him. And when Man's justice to man faileth, there God's vengeance is ready to make a supply: For, saith Clemens, Vidisti fratrem tuum? vidisti Deum tuum: When thou lookest upon thy Brother, 
Clem. Alex. Strom. 2.  thou seest God himself, as near as Mortality can discover him; for he is the fairest Copy thou canst see him by, fairer than the Heaven of Heavens, and those ministers of light; fairer than the fairest Star, than the Sun in the Firmament, when he rejoiceth to run his race. Hence Saint John concludes positively and peremptorily, 1 Epist. 4.20. If a man say he loveth God, and hateth his brother, (and he that deceives him, he that oppresseth him, hates him; or else despises him, which is worse) he is a liar: and his reason is irrefragable, For he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, in whom he sees himself, in whom he sees his God, and so hath love conveyed into his heart by his very eye, many visible motives to win him to this duty, how can be love God whom he hath not seen? whom no man hath seen or can see, but, as the Apostle speaks, though a glass darkly, in his words, and in his works, of which Man is the brightest Mirror, and gives the fairest and clearest representation of him. So that now we may see all Mankind tied and united together in this Love-knot of Nature; knit together as Men, that they should not fly asunder, and then return again one upon another, not as Men, but as Snakes and Vipers; look back, but with an evil eye; approach near, but in a cloud or tempest; not look, but envy; not speak, but lie; not touch, but strike; not converse with, but defraud and oppress one another; which is against that Law with which we were born, and which we carry about with us whithersoever we go, and whatsoever we do.  〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. 
How gracious and helpful a creature is one man to another, if he continue so, a man, and receive no new impression from the flesh, from self-love, and those transitory vanities below? if he be not by assed and wheeled from this Natural motion, by the world, and so fit to be driven into the field with Nabuchadnezzar, being turned Fox, or Lion, or Tiger, or Panther, or worse than any of those Beasts, because he is a Man? (for so many forms he may receive, having once degenerated from his own) and then 'tis not: Look upon Men as of the same mould and frame, as Brethren by nature; as auxiliaries and supplies, as keepers and guardians; but Cavete ab hominibus, Beware of men; a warning and caution given by our Saviour himself, Mat. 10.17. and a strange caution it is from him who so loved men that he died for them. Beware of men, beware of them thus transformed, thus Brutifyed. That smiling friend may be a tempter; He that calls himself a Saint, may be a Seducer; his oily tongue may wound thee; his embrace crush thee to pieces; that demure countenance may shadow a legion of Devils. Look not upon his phylacteries, the Man's a Pharisee; and this Angel keeper may be thy Murderer. And thus it is when the course of nature is turned backward, and Man degenerates from himself, and makes his Reason, which should be an instrument and promoter of Justice, a servant to sin, and a weapon of unrighteousness. This the love of the world, and the wisdom of the flesh can do; Victrix etiam de Natura triumphant, When it prevails, it moves and troubles the Wheel, as S. James calls it, the whole course of our Nativity, and triumphs over Nature itself.  
Now to draw this yet nearer to our purpose; Speak what we will of Profit and Commodity, the Heathen Orator by the very light of Nature hath told us, That they who divide Profit from Justice and Honesty, and call that profit and advantage, which is unlawfully gotten or detained, 
Subvertunt homines & ea quae sua● Fundamenta N●turae, citm utilitatem ab Hon shalt sejungunt. Tall. de off. l. 3.  with the same hand lift at the very foundation of nature, and strive to put out that light which they cannot utterly extinguish; Ista duo facimus ex uno, saith Seneca, though we make Profit and Honesty two things, yet they are but one and the same; and therefore to rise upon another man's ruins, to enrich ourselves by fraud and deceit, is as much against nature, saith Tully, as poverty which pincheth it, or grief which afflicts it, or death which dissolves it; for poverty may strip the body, 
Ibid.  grief may trouble it, and death may strike it to the ground, but yet they have a soul, but injustice is its destruction, and leaves a dead soul in a living body. For as we have already shown, man is naturally. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a sociable creature, but violence and deceit quite destroy all Society; and Lul gives the same reason in his Offices, which Saint Paul doth against Schism in his Epistles, 1 Cor. 12. If one member suffer, all the members suffer with it; and therefore the intent and purpose of all must be, saith the Orator, ut eadem sit utilitas uniuscujusque & singulorum, that the benefit of one and every man may be the same, so that what deceit hath purloined, of stolen away, or violence snatched from others, is not Profit, because it is not honest; 
Res surtiva, quousque redierit in Comini potestatem, perpetuò vitiosa est.  and the Civilians will tell us, that, that which is unjustly detained is not valuable, is of no worth till it return to the hands of the lawful proprietary.  
Again, in the second place; Justice and Honesty are more agreeable to the nature of men than Profit or4 Pleasure; For these reason itself hath taught us to contemn, and he most enjoys himself who desires not pleasure, and he is the richest man who can be poor, and we are never more men, then when we lest regard them; but if we forfeit our integrity, and pervert the course of Justice, we have left ourselves nothing but the name of men. Si, quod absit, spes foelicitatis nulla, saith Saint Austin, If we had no eye to eternity, nor hope of future happiness; 
Tull. Off. 3.  Si omnes Deos hominesque celare possimus, saith Tully, if we could make darkness a pavilion round about us, and lie screened and hid from the eyes of God and man, yet a necessity would lie upon us to be what we are made, to observe the lessons and dictates of nature, saith one; Nihil injustè faciendum, saith the other, nothingmust be done unjustly, though God had no eye to see it, nor hand to punish it; and this doctrine is current both at Athens and Jerusalem, both in the Philosopher's School and in the Church of God.  
To give you yet another reason, but yet of near alliance to the first; whatsoever we do, or resolve upon, must habere suas causas, as Arnobius speaks, must be commended by that cause which produceth it; now what cause can move us to desire that which is not ours? what cause can the oppressor show that he grinds the face of the poor? the thief, that he divides the spoil? The deceitful tradesman, that he hath false weights, Pondus & pondus, a weight and a weight, a weight to buy with, and a weight sell with? If you ask them, what cause? they will eitherlye and deny it, or put their hand upon their mouth, and be ashamed to answer; here their wit will fail them, which was so quick and active to bring that about, for which they had no reason: it may be, the cause was, an unnecessary fear of poverty, as if it were a greater sin than cozenage; It may be the love of their children, & saepe ad avaritiam cor parentis illicit. Foecunditas prolis, 
Gregan 1 job c. 4.  saith Gregory, many children are as many temptations, and we are soon overcome and yield, willing to be evil, that they may be, rich, and calling it the duty of a Parent, when we feed, and clothe them with our sin; or indeed it is the love of the world, and a desire to hold up our heads with the best, which are no causes, but defects and sins, the blemishes and deformities of a soul transformed after the image of this world. These are but sophisms, and delusions, and of no causality. For ti's better I were poor then fraudulent; better that my children should be naked than my soul; better want then be unjust; better be in the lowest place, then to swim in blood to the highest; better be driven out of the world then shut out of heaven. It is no sin to be poor, no sin to be in dishonour, no sin to be on a dunghill, or in a prison; it is no sin to be a slave: but it is a sin, and a great sin, to rise out of my place, or either flatter, or shoulder my neighbour out of his, and to take his room; It is no sin to be miserable in the highest degree, but it is a sin to be unjust or dishonest in the least. Iniquity and injustice have nothing of reason to countenance them, and therefore must run and shelter themselves in that thicket of excuses, must pretend want, and poverty, and necessity; and so the object of my concupiscence must Authorise my concupiscence, and the wedg of gold warrant my theft, and to gain something is my strongest argument to gain it unjustly. 
Ibid.  And therefore Tully saith well, If any man will bring in and urge these for causes, argue not against him, nor vouchsafe him so much as a reply; omnino enim hominem ex homine tollit, for he hath most unnaturally divided man from himself, and left nothing but the beast. Nature itself, our first School-mistris, loathes and detests it, nor will it suffer us by any means to add to our own, by any defalkation from that which is another's; and such is the equity of this position, that the Civil Law always appeals unto it, videtur dolum malum facere qui ex aliena jactura lucrum querit, He is guilty of cozenage and fraud, who seeks advantage by another man's loss; where by Dolus malus is understood whatsoever is repugnant to the Law of nature or equity. For with the beams of this Law, as with the beams of the Sun, were all Humane Laws written, which whip idleness, which pin the Papers of Ignominy (the best hatchments of a knave) in the hat of the common barretter, which break the teeth of the oppressor, and turn the bread of the deceitful into Gall; upon this Basis, this principle of nature, whatsoever you would that men should do unto you, even so do unto them, hang all the Law and the Prophets. For the rule of behaviour which our Saviour set up, is taken out of the Treasury of nature, and for this is the Law and the Prophets, Matth. 7.2. that is, upon this Law of nature depend the Law and the Prophets, or by the due and strict observing of this, the Law is fulfilled, as Saint Paul speaks, Rom. 13.8. or this is the sum of all which the Law and the Prophets have taught, to wit, concerning Justice and Honesty, and those mutual offices, 
All. Lamprid.  and duties of men to men; a rule so equitable, so visible even to the eye of a natural man, that Severus a heathen Emperor made his motto, and some have engraven it in their rings, visne hoc fieri in agro tuo quod alteri facis? wouldst thou have done that in another man's field which thou wouldst not have done in thy own? would any impostor be caught by craft? would any spoiler be spoiled? would any cheat be cozened? would any oppressor have his face ground? would any calumniator be slandered? and why should any man claim the privilege of his humanity, if he be not willing to grant it to all? why should this secure me from injuries, and leave my brother as a mark for deceit to go about, and Malice, and Covetousness, and Power to shoot at? why should not this Law of nature be an Amulet to secure all mankind from the venom of Fraud and Injustice? This Law of nature brought forth a Regulus, a Cato, a Fabricius, and those Worthies, which shown to posterity the possibility of keeping this Law so far as to be Just, and do as yet teach and upbraid us Christians.  
By this Law, and by no other than this, were the Aediles or Clarks of the Market in Rome, directed to lay it down as a Law, that whosoever sold any Commodity, was to disclose to the buyer, what fault, what defect, what imperfection it had: If he sold an House in which the Plague had been, he was to proclaim it by the common crier, Pestilentem Domum Vendo, I sell an infectious house; If he sold a Horse, he was to make known the diseases; if a piece of cloth, the falsehood of it; for if he did not this, there lay an action against him, Actio redibhitoria, by which he was constrained to take back his wares again, or make good the damage to the buyer: By this they fling all false and deceitful wares into the River. This hath been done in Gath and Askelon; what a strange sight would this be in Jerusalem? This hath been done amongst Heathen, 
Solebant Aediles malas merces in flumen jactare Plin. Nat. Hist. p. 638.  aliens from the Grace of god, and is it not pity it should appear as ridiculous amongst us Christians, who make our boast of it all the day long? for should we put it in practice, what objects of scorn and laughter should we be made to the man of this world, who would call us fools, or set us down for none of the wisest, or (which is the easiest censure) place us in the number of those, 
Hier. ad Eustoch. Amittit meritò proprium qut alienum app. tit. Vide aus. epiced. in patrem & ver. ●nterp. in Sar. Juvenal.  who may be wise perhaps, but will not be wise for themselves? But Saint Hierom goes further and adds, aliena adpetentes publicae leges puniunt, The public Laws did punish even those who did but seek after or desire another man's possessions; perhaps alluding to that custom of the Ancients, who straight forbade that any man should add to, or diminish that which he possessed. Lastly, this was it that made them sacrifice Deo Lermino, 
Q● Term num ex rassa, ipse & Raves 〈◊〉 Fest. in verbo. Te●minus.  to the God of bounds; and as god laid a curse upon him that removed the Landmark, Deut. 19.14. so did Numa by the light of nature, even upon him who, though by chance, had ploughed it up, such is the tye of nature so, great an obligation doth it carry with it; for whatsoever is done against nature, all men, saith Tertullian, esteem as monstrous, but Christians Sacrilegious against God, who is the lord, and Author of nature, and further we press not this consideration.  
For in the second place; Justice and Honesty have yet a fairer pillar, more polished and beautiful, more radiant and manifest to the eye, for besides the Law of Nature, or Humane Laws, which are but the extracts and resultances from it, Habemus legem, we have a Law written, the Law of God, who is a God of truth, and pure eyes, and cannot behold deceit and violence, and the Law of that great Lawgiver, the Prince of righteousness, in whose mouth there was sound no guile. 
Angust. de Relig. c. 6.  And this makes our obligation to do justly the stronger. Lex prohibens omnia delicta congeminat, saith Austin, the superaddition of a Law to the Law written in our hearts, aggravates and multiplies a sin, because after the open promulgation of a Law, we do not only that which is unlawful in itself, but also that which is by supreme authority forbidden. Now when we speak of a Law, we do not mean the Law of Moses (although that commands to make our Hin right and our Ephah right. 
Leges 12. Tabul. ne Agrum defraudante; ae frugein a●atro qua si●am n●…ctu surtim depescuqto, I'u e●…s si secanto, Cor. ri eos su●peniunto. Impaberts' arbi●…to Pra●oris verber. nio; Ac noxae●… aliodem dee raunio. Plin. Nat. Hist. l. 28. c. 3.  Levit. 19.36. That, that should be restored, which was either violently or deceitfully taken away. Levit. 6.4. That, that which goes astray, or is lost, should be restored. Deut. 22.1. That the hired servant be not oppressed. Deut. 24.13,14,15. That he that killeth a Beast shall restore it. Levit. 24.21. That he that smites a man, so that he keepeth his bed, shall pay for the loss of his time, and cause him to be throughly healed. Levit. 21.18,19. That if a man feed his beast in another man's field, he shall make restitution out of his own seld. Exod. 22.5. That in buying and selling they should not oppress one another. Levit. 25.14.) but legem Evangelicam, the Law which was preached and promulged by Righteousness itself, the best master Christ Jesus, and by this Christians are obliged above all the men in the world, because they are Disciples of a better testament. For Christ came not to destroy the Law of Nature, but to establish and improve it; and though it propose some duties to which peradventure by clear evidence we are not obliged by the Law of Nature, yet they who have most improved and perfected their reason, even by the light of reason will subscribe to them that they are just and good, and as they concern our conversation with men, most fit to be done, and most worthy of observation. Innocentiam perfecte nôtrant Christiani perfecto magistro revelatam, saith Tertullian, 
Tertull. Apol.  That innocency of life which beats down all violence, checks and confutes all Sophistry and deceit in dealing, is most exactly learned by Christians from the best and perfectest master that ever was, who that we may not kill, hath taught us not to be angry; that we may shut out uncleanness, hath shut up our eyes; that we may not do evil, hath prohibited us to speak or think it; and is so far from permitting his disciples to do any injury, that he hath expressly and straight commanded them with patience to bear any that is offered: quis illic sicarius? quis manticularius? quis sacrilegus? what Christian saith he, is a murderer, or a thief, or a sacrilegious person? or will he steal thy coat, who by his profession is bound to give thee his, and his cloak also? It was a common saying amongst them, Bonus vir Caius Seius, Caius Seius was a just Good man certainly, & there was but one fault in him, and that was, that he was a Christian. When the soldiers asked john the Baptist, what shall we do? he returned an answer which did not disarm them, but bound their hands from violence and wrong, Do no violence, Accuse no man falsely, and be content with your wages. The Publicans were odious even to a proverb, yet he vouchsafeth them an answer; Exact no more than is appointed you, Luk. 3.13. will you hear our Saviour from the mount? and there you cannot but observe, that most of those precepts delivered there tend to Honesty and Sincerity of conversation with men, Blessed are the merciful. Blessed are the peacemakers. Be not angry. Let your yea be yea, and your nay be nay; which short precept leaves no room for fraud and deceit, for that which is called Dolus malus, when our yea is nay, and our nay yea; one thing is said and another meant; one thing is pretended, and another done. The Apostles are frequent in urging this duty; for Christianity was so far from disannulling those precepts of morality and mutual conversation, which the Philosophers by the light of nature delivered and transmitted to posterity, that the ancient Christians as learned Grotius observes, 
Grot. Prolegom. ad l. de Jure bell. & pacis.  though they were not devoted to any one Sect of them, yet observing that as there was no Sect which had found out all truth, so also there was not one of them which had not discovered-some, did take the pains to collect and gather into a body, what was here and there diffused and scattered in their several writings, and did think this a fair commentary on the Practic part of the Gospel, and a sufficient expression of that discipline, which Christians by their very title and profession were bound to observe: you may read them in the Philosophers, but they are the precepts of Christ.  
And this is the true face of Christianity: For no other foundation can any man lay, then that which is laid; Christ Jesus, 1 Cor. 3.11. 
See Serm. 20.  Now every foundation should bear something; not wood, and hay, and stubble, but gold, and silver, and precious stones; Fraud, and Violence, and Injustice, cannot lie upon that foundation which is laid in Truth, in Mercy, in Justice, nor upon that Saviour who knew no guile; who had this Elogium from his very enemies, That he had done all things well, and that there was no fault to be found in him. No, upon this foundation you must lay such materials which are like unto it, Innocency, and Truth, and Righteousness; which that they may grow up and flourish amongst the sons of men, he watered them with his Blood, which was shed for the Oppressor, that he might be merciful; for the Dissembler, that he might speak truth; for the Deceitful person, that he might be just in all his ways, and righteous in all his deal; for the violent person, that he might do no more wrong; and if it have not this effect, it is his blood still, but not to save us, but to be upon us to our condemnation. For 'tis strange, that Christ's blood should produce nothing but a speculative, a fancied and an usurped faith, a faith which should keep those evils in life, which he died to take away; a faith, which should suffer those sins and irregularities, to grow and grow bold, and pass in triumph, which he came to root out of the earth, and to banish out of the world. Faith is the substance, the expectation of a future and better condition; but we do not use to expect a thing, and have no eye upon the means of attaining it. Can we expect to fly without wings, or go a journey without feet? no more can we hope ever to enter those heavens, wherein dwelleth righteousness, if we have no other conduct but faith, faith so poorly and miserably attended, with fraud, deceit, injustice, and violence. For who shall dwell in the holy hill? He that walketh uprightly, and worketh righteousness, and speaketh the truth in his heart: He that doth no evil to his neighbour, that sweareth to his own hurt, and changeth not. Psal. 15. 'Tis strange then that there should be so many oppressors in the world, and so many Saints; that so many should forfeit their honesty, and yet count their election sure; that they who are like enough to do as the Jews did, Crucify Christ, if he were on the earth, should yet hope to be saved by his blood: For if you should ask me, what the true property of a Christian were (faith always supposed, which is the ground and foundation of all) I could not find any virtue which doth more fairly decipher, or more fully express him, than sincerity and uprightness of conversation, which saith Chymachus, 
Scal P●rad. gra●. 1.  is virtus sine varietate, a virtue which is ever like unto itself, and makes us so; which doth not look divers ways at once, both towards Samaria and Jerusalem; doth not profess a benefit when it studies ruin; cloth hatred with a smile, and a purpose to deceive, with fair language and large promises, nor make up words of butter, which at last prove to be very swords: but it is like the Topaz, si polis obscuras, if you polish it, you obscure and darken it, but if you leave it as nature presents it, it casts the brighter lustre. And if you ask me the emblem of a Christian, our Saviour hath already given one, the Dove, whose Feathers are silver white, not speckled, as a bird of divers colours, but whose eyes are single, and direct, not leering as a fox, nor looking divers ways, animal simplex, non felle amarum, non morstb us saevum, saith Cyprian, an innocent and harmless bird, no bird of prey, without gall, not cruel to fight, having no talons to lay hold on the prey; so far from doing wrong that he knows not how to do it. For, as Quintilian observes, 
Quint. l. 1. Instit. c. 14. de Grammat. off.  Inter virtutes Grammatici est nescire quaedam, That it is to be summed up amongst the virtues of a Grammarian to be ignorant of some particular nice impertinences: so is it a part of a Christians integrity and simplicity not to be acquainted with the wiles and devises and stratagems of the world; to be a non proficient in the Devil's Politics; to hear the language of the children of this world as a strange tongue, and understand it not; not to know what cannot make him better, and may make him worse; not to know that which we may wish buried in oblivion and darkness, never to be seen or known of any; for what glory can it be, to be well seen in these arts of Legerdemain? what praise is it to be that (which I cannot hear from others with patience) an unjust, deceitful, and dishonest man? for (to conclude this) it is far worse to do unjustly, then to be reproached for doing so; far worse to be dishonest, then to be called by that name; far worse to be a thief, or a Traitor, then to be hanged for it: for between the evil of action and the evil of passion there is no comparison; the evil of passion may have a good end, it may be medicinal, and cure the sinner, if not set an end to his wickedness, but the evil of action hath no end but damnation, no wages but death, and that too hath no end, for it will be eternal.  
Thus have we seen Justice or Honesty in its full shape and beauty, fastened upon its proper pillars, the Law of Nature, and the Law of the God of nature: let us now see by way of Application, with what eye and favour the world of men and the world of Christians have looked upon it; whether they have not relied more on those pillars of smoke and air, their private fancy, and private interest, than these pillars of marble which God himself hath set up, which are firm and strong, and might bear them up; to build upon them that Justice, which would raise them up above the dying and killing glories of this world, to that which is everlasting in the highest heavens; and so conclude.  
And first, the complaint is old that Justice and Honesty hath since left the earth, or rather is driven out of it; to speak truth, when her Territories were largest, when she stretched the curtains of her habitation to the furthest, she did but angustè habitare, she took up but little roo me, and her retinue was but small; she never yet could tithe the children of men, and it had been well if she had taken in one of an hundred. It were even a labour to show the divers arts and inventions of men, which they made use of to work out their way to honour, 
Ad haec simplicem h●ct●nus vivendi ration●m excogit ●tis m●nsuris, & po●deribus immutavit, pristinamque sincerita●…m & generositat●m ignaram talium artium, in novam quandam versutiam d●pravavit. Joseph. Antiq. ludaic. l. 1. c. 3. Sen. de Benef. l. 7. c. 10.  and the riches of this world. Cain is blamed by Josephus for first finding out Weights and Measures, which was a  and silent accusation that that age was corrupt, in which so much caution was necessary. Quid foenus & kalendarium? saith Seneca, what are interest, and the calendar, and your count-books, but names extra naturam posita, found out quite besides and beyond the intention of nature? what are your bills and obligations, and indentures, but as so many Libels wherein you profess to the world, that you dare not trust one another, and that you believe men cannot be honest unless they be bound? plus annulis quàm animis creditis, your seal-rings are a better assurance than your Faiths. And how do too many sell themselves, but not for bread? how in all sorts and conditions of men have some used their power, others their wit pro lege publica, instead of a public Law; and have entitled themselves the just possessors of that estate into which they have wrought themselves with hands of oppression, robbery, and deceit? It hath been an old reproach which hath been laid upon Commonwealths, that they did set common honesty to sale. The Athenians had 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a tribute out of the stews; and we are told that Christians have so, it Rome may yet be thought to be in Christendom. Look into the Civil Law Codice de Spect. Scen. & Lenonibus, of theatrical shows, stageplayss, and bawds, and you shall find, that even from hence, from these loathsome and nasty dunghills of corruption, Emperors, & Commonwealths have sucked gain: Mathematicians, Jugglers, Fortune-tellers, Thiefs, and which the Father could not tell whether he should grieve or blush at, Inter hos Christiani vectigales, 
Tert. Apo●o●. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Prov. Art 2. Rhet. F●st. Verb. uxor. Tacitus.  amongst this rabble Christians also were brought in as Tributary. This was exacted from poor men, from statues, from deadmen, from very Urine, and to the Emperor it was a sweet smelling savour. In one age they did Uxorium pendere, pay a sum of money for not being married; in another etiam Matrimonia obnoxia, they who were married were liable to this exaction; quocunque modo rem, Gain was welcome at what gate or postern soever it came in: so soon did they forget they were men, so little did they regard the Law of nature.  
And it were to be wished that this evil had stayed here, that this art of unjust and unlawful acquisition had been only known in the tents of Kedar; but by degrees it stole in and found entertainment in the Church of God, and Christians forgetting their profession, quae nil nisi justum suadet, which should be known by justice and equity, and the contempt of the world, began to think stolen waters sweet, and to feed greedily on the bread of deceit and violence. For as the Pharisees did teach their children to say to their Father and Mother, Corban, which is not a curse, as some have imagined; for the Pharisees were too wise to be so openly wicked, as to teach men to curse their parents; (to have done this had been to forfeit their Phylacteries) but it was their craft and policy, an art to fill their treasury; and therefore they taught children who were offended with their parents to consecrate their wealth to the Treasury, that so they might defeat that other Law which bond them to supply their parents in want and distress; so even within the pale of the Church, there were found men whose Phylacteries were as broad as theirs, who by holy fraud did take into their hands the possessions of the earth, and at last laid claim unto the whole world, and that upon the score of Religion; taught men to redeem their ill-spent time with a piece of silver; for what were else the prayers for the dead, as they were used in the Church of Rome, but the price of men's souls? For the very thought of the power and efficacy of them drove men to a more supine and negligent conversation, to weary themselves in the ways of wickedness, having such a pillow to sleep on; for what need they be diligent to make their election sure whilst they live, who are fully persuaded that this may be done by proxy for them when they are dead? This is truly the Pharisees Corban, to teach men to rob their parents, to endanger their souls by religion, that so their treasuries may be full, and so to make that monumentum sceleris, a lasting monument of their craft and policy, which should have been specimen pietatis, an example and expression of piety; this was to cheat them into charity and liberality (which should be free and voluntary) with false hopes. It was the saying of Martin Luther, Papatus est robusta venatio Romani episcopi, that Popery was nothing else but a close scenting and following of gain, and hunting after the riches and Pomp of the world; for if men will not give or yield up their estates, either Policy shall betray, or Power like a whirlwind snatch them away. When Peter's keys are too weak, Julius the second flings them into the River ●iber, with this Christian resolution, to try what Paul's sword could do.  
We may say with the wise man, that this is an evil disease under the sun, a disease which did not only envenome that politic estate, which is nothing else but a disease, but did spread some part of its poison and Malignity amongst those who may seem to have been sent down from heaven to purge it out. We cannot but magnify the name of God for this blessed reformation of the Church, and bless their memories which were the Instruments; but yet some there be, who have thought it a just complaint, that at least some of those who did bear a name with the best, did not so much seek God's honour, as their own, and the improvement of their estate, and enlargement of their Territories, more than the advancement of piety, and so to recover her, drew more blood from her than was necessary.  
Excessit medicina modum, nimiumque secuta est  
Quâ morbi duxere, manus—  Lucan. 
I will here pass no censure upon it, and yet one would think Jupiter's cloak would sit best on his own shoulders; but yet we may have leave to look back and bewail it, and at least wish that the hand which was so active to cure it had not made so deep an incision as to leave no blood: That there had been some other way found out to restore her to her health and soundness, then that which at first made her poor, and at last nothing. But this is but our wish, and not our censure, and we may spend our affection there, where we may not venture our judgement; The tree which grew up and was strong, whose leaves were fair, and fruit much, whose height seemed to reach to heaven, and the sight thereof to the end of all the earth; whose boughs spread even to the envy of her who sits as a Queen amongst the nations, is now hewn down, and scarce a stump of the roots left in the earth: so that we may wish for that which we can never hope; and yet we might have observed some of those who cried down with it, down with it to the ground, even those who first laid the axe to the root of the tree, sad and heavy and angry as Haman was when he waited on Mordecai, now clad with that honour which his ambition had prophesied and decreed to himself, much troubled that they gathered so little fruit from the branches, when the tree was fallen.  
But to proceed; This contagion hath spread itself well-near over the face of all Christendom, where most men count that lawful purchase, which they can lay hold on: much like Vibius in Tacitus, 
l. 4. Hist.  pecunia & ingenio inter claros magis quam bonos; more famous for their worldly providence and wealth than their honesty. What should I speak of thiefs that are dragged to the Bar? 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. G●ll. l. 11. N●ct. Attic. c. 18.  the Greek proverb tells us there be thiefs that keep holiday; and old Cato in Gellius, that those who steal from private men, are fed with the bread of affliction, held in misery and Irons; but Fures publici in auro & purpura, but your public thiefs do glitter in purple and gold, and none dare say, Black is their eye, (as the word is) for fear of losing their own. There have been Laws made against those who dig down walls by night, who sell adulterate and mixed corn, who suppress and hoard their corn to sell it dearer, whom Basil calls the Hucksters and Factors of the common calamity; 
Lex Metell● extat Fullo●nbus dicta, ad●ò omnia m jor●lus curae f. e●c. Plin. N.Q. 35.13.  Laws against Impostors and cheaters, and the authority of the Magistrate hath influence upon men of what calling or quality soever. In the Commonwealth of Rome, there was a Law to regulate Fuller's, and in ours a Parliamentary Statute, that Cord-wainers should look to their sowing threads, and that their wax should be well tempered; but what Law can restrain them who can deal with the Law as Alexander did with the Gordian knot, cut it asunder with their sword; 
Cic●…r. Bru●. sive de claris. Orat.  I mean can defeat and baffle the Law by their power and wealth? or those, who as Tully spoke of a certain Orator, are Lubrici & incomprehensibles, so slippery, that the Law cannot lay hold on them; so cunning, that they can deceive the eyes of the Sun, and Justice itself, and rob the poor even at noonday; who can make up the ruins of their estate which the die or strumpet hath wasted, with the tears of the widow and fatherless, and then think with that Emperor, Nunquam se prosperiori al●â usos, that they never threw a more fortunate cast in their life? yet such we have in the world, and they call themselves Christians.  
We must draw towards a conclusion: Thus have we shaken both the pillars of Justice, Nature and Grace, and put behind our backs the lessons of the one, and precepts of the other, that we may run with less regret and control to that forbidden tree which we delight to look on. Nature is swallowed up in victory by the love of the world; buried and raked up in the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh, and the Pride of life; and then on this foundation of innocency we build in blood; on this ground of Justice we set up oppression: nay which is yet worse, Nature is swallowed up in victory by Grace itself, the Decalogue is lost in our Creed, & Honesty in Faith; for a strange conceit is now crept into the world, that how regardless soever we be of those seeds of Goodness, how forgetful soever of that which nature dictates to us, yet if we can hear of honesty, talk of honesty, and cast some of our Gall and Bitterness upon that Injustice which is to us as sweet as honey, we may be good Christians enough, and the only religious men in the world. And as the ancients in time of Superstition, did appropriate Religion to that kind of life which did least express it, and men were then said Ingredi Religionem, to enter into Religion, when they went into a Monastery, and put on a Monk's cowl; so there are a generation of men amongst us, who talk of nothing more than Religion, as if it must needs live and die with them, and yet do only take her mantle and vizor, and in it walk on the whole course of their life; here beating their fellow servants, here defaming one, and defrauding another, and defaming him, that they may defraud him; they sharply inveigh against and lash the iniquities of the time, they are severe Justiciaries, and chastise all but themselves, 
Ausonii Cupido Crucisixus.  as the wanton women in Ausonius did crucify Cupid on the wall, sibi ignoscunt, & plectunt Deum, they know well enough how to pardon themselves for fraud, for lying, for false weights and measures, for covetousness and malice, and the whole body of their Religion is made up in this, to fling disgrace upon the name of dishonesty, and so punish it but in a picture.  
For conclusion then; to avoid these rocks at which so many have been cast away and lost, Let us first look up upon this light of nature, and walk honestly as in the day, and not after those blind guides, the love of ourselves, and the glory of the world, which will lead us on pleasantly for a while, and at last slip from us and leave us in the dark, there to lament, and curse the folly of our ways. For Riches and Honour and Pleasure are not natural unto us, but adventitious and accidental, and that which is natural should be prevalent against all that is accidental, 
Accidentali praeval●t naturale. c. 3. ff. de Tutelis.  say the Civilians. This Relation by Nature should be strong against all foreign Circumstances whatsoever. And therefore it is but a busy folly, a studious kind of iniquity, to come and frame distinctions which may wipe out this relation, and so leave us at lose with line enough to run out unto a liberty and privilege of encroaching on others by fraud or violence; As the Persians in Xenophon taught their children, that they might lie or not lie with a distinction, lie loudly to their enemies, so they remember to speak truth to their friends; deceive a stranger, and not an acquaintance; and I fear we have too many such Persisians in this our Island, and if they do not utter and dictate it, yet their hearts speak it, and their hands speak it, and their practice proclaims it to the whole world. He is a stranger, he is an enemy, of another Religion, of another Faction, I may make what advantage I can upon him, undermine and blow him up; and thus the man, the image of God, the brother is quite lost. And what is the issue of this Diabolical coinage? even the same which Xenophon there observed to be of the Persian education. Their children, saith he, soon forgot the distinction, and grew up at last to be so bold as to lie to their best friends. And so it is with them who find it an easier thing to call themselves Religious then to make themselves honest; who first begin with these provisoes and distinctions to practice injustice, and with so much gravity and demureness to deceive their brethren, and to be dishonest by a rule, at last they fall down to an universal and promiscuous iniquity: Friends, brother, they of the same family, they of the same Sect and faction, all are the same with them; when they look for advantage, no respect of persons; when they look for Balaams' wages, every man than is a stranger, an enemy, or as strangely, used as if he were; and this is to put out the light of nature, and so to go a whoring after our own inventions, which once kindled by the love of this world, are those false lights which lead us into that darkness which Saint John speaks of. He that thus handleth his brother, 
1 john 2.19.  walketh in darkness, and knoweth not whither he goeth, because darkness hath blinded his eyes, that he cannot see a man in a man, nor a brother in a brother; a man in the same shape, and built up of the same materials; a man of the same passions with himself.  
And therefore by this light of Nature, let us check and condemn ourselves, when any gall of bitterness riseth in our hearts; and alloy, or rather root it out with this consideration, That it is most inhuman and unnatural, that we cannot nourish it in our breast, and not fall from the honour of our Creation, and leave off to be men. How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, and cut down to the ground? Es. 14.12. and how art thou fallen, O man, whosoever thou art that dost unjustly, that takest from another that which is his, either by violence or deceit? How art thou fallen from heaven? (for on earth there is no other heaven, but that which Justice and Charity make;) How art thou fallen to hell itself, nay to be an hell, a place for these foul spirits malice and fraud to reign and riot in, and to torment others and thyself? How art thou fallen from conversing with Angels, to wallow in blood; from the glory of thy Creation to burning fire, and blackness and darkness and tempest? O what a shame is it, That a man thus created, thus Elemented and composed, should delight in fraud, in violence and oppression; should feed on that bread not which his father who made him, did put into his hands, but which craft did purloin, or violence snatch from the hands of others who were not so wise or so strong as himself? That this creature of love, made by love, and made to be Sociable, should be as hot as a fiery furnace sending forth nothing but sulphur and stench? That this honourable Creature should be a beast, nay a devil to ensnare, to accuse, to deceive and destroy his brethren?  
This is a sad aggravation; but if the light of Nature be too dim and cannot lead us out of the world, and those winding and crooked paths, which the love of it makes in it every day, let us in the last place, look up upon that clearer light, that light which did spring from on high and hath visited us; why should not our friends be more powerful with us than our enemies? why should not Grace be stronger than a temptation? why should not the rich and glorious promises of the Gospel be more eloquent and persuasive, than the solicitations of the flesh, which is every moment drawing nearer to the dust; or of the world, which changeth every day, and shall at last be burnt with fire? why should they not have the power to purge and cleanse us from all unrighteousness? why should we choose rather to be raised and enriched here for a span of time, by craft and power, then to be crowned by Justice and Integrity for ever? For this is the end for which this great light hath shined, to lighten every man that is in the world, that they may walk in the paths of righteousness. It is a light that leads unto bliss, but it will not go before an oppressor, a thief, an Impostor, a Tyrant, to lead them to it, because they delight not in it, and do but talk on't; 
Math. 6.23.  The light that is in them is darker than darkness itself, their judgement is corrupt, their will is averse and looks another way from the Region of light. Without faith 'tis impossible to please God; It is true, but without Justice and Honesty faith is but a name; for can we imagine that Religion should turn Thief, and Devotion a Cutpurse?  
To conclude then; That you may do justly, and walk honestly as in the day, consider injustice, oppression, and deceit in their true shape and proportion, and not daubed over with untempered mortar; not disguised with the pleasures and riches of the world; not vailed and dressed up with pretences and Names, which make them lovely, and make them worse; consider well, and weigh the danger of them, and from what they proceed. For first, If we would find out the fountain from whence they flow, we shall find it is nothing else but a strange distrust in God, and a violent love of the world; a distrust in that God who is so far from leaving man destitute of that which is convenient for him, that he feeds the young Ravens that call upon him. For if the windows of heaven do not open at our call, if riches increase not to fill our vast desires, we murmur and repine, and even chide the Providence of God, and by foul and indirect means pursue that which would not fall into our mouths. As aul, in the book of Kings, Acheronta movemus, when God will not answer, we ask counsel of the devil.  
Secondly, we may think perhaps that they are the effects of Power and Wisdom, the works of men who bear a brain with the best; that they are the glorious victories of our wit, and Trophies of our Power; but indeed they are the infallible Arguments of weakness and impotency, and as the devils marks upon us. Non est vera magnitudo pesse nocere, It is not true power nor true greatness to be able to injure our brethren; It is not true wisdom to be cunning artists in evil, and to do that in the dark which may be done with more certainty and Honour in the light; and to raise up that with a lie, which will rise higher, and stand longer with the truth. That power more emulates the power of God, by which we can do good, That comes nearer by which we will; nor can we attribute wisdom to the fraudulent, but that which we may give to a Juggler or a Pickpurse, or indeed to the Devil himself. And commonly these scarabees are bred in the dung of Laziness and Luxury, and their crafty insinuating, their subtle sliding into other men's estate had its rise and beginning from an indisposition and inability to manage their own. He that can bring no demonstration, must play the Sophister; and if the body will not do, than he that will be rich, saith Nevisanus the Lawyer, must venture his soul.  
Lastly, weigh the danger of it; for though the bread of deceit have a pleasant taste, and goes down glibly, yet passing to thee through so foul a channel as fraud or oppression, it will fill thee with the gall of Asps. The robbery of the wicked shall destroy them, saith Solomon, Prov. 21.7. shall fall upon them like that talon of lead, and fall upon the mouth of their Ephah, and lie heavy upon it. Serrabit eos, as it is rendered by others, shall tear their conscience, as with a saw; exossabit, as others, shall consume them to the very bones, and break them as upon a wheel; or as others, Rapina eorum diversabitur, That which is got unjustly shall not stay long with them. It may give them a salutation, a compliment, peregrinabitur, like a traveller on the way, it may lodge with them for a night, but dwell longer as with a friend it will not, but take the wing and fly away from these unjust usurpers, never at rest but in those hands which are washed in innocency, and in that mouth which knows no guile; will dwell with none but those that do justly. To conclude; Tribulation and anguish upon every soul of man who doth that which is evil and unjust; to the oppressor and deceiver, to the man that boasteth himself in his power, and to the man that blesseth himself in his craft; to the proud Hypocrite, and the demure Politician; but to those that do justly, that are as God is, just in all their ways, and righteous in all their deal, that walk holily before God, and Justly with men, shall be Glory, and Honour, and peace, and immortality, and eternal life.  
Thus much of Justice and Honesty: the next is, the Love of Mercy, but, etc.    

 blazon or royal coat of arms of England and Wales HONI ●…T QVI MAL Y PENSE  
The Five and Twentieth SERMON.  

PART V.  MICAH 6.8. 
He hath showed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, to love mercy, etc.  
WE have laid hold of one branch of this tree of life, and beheld what fruit it bare; we must now see what we can gather from the second, Mercy or Liberality, which grows upon the same stock, and is watered with the same dew from heaven, and brings forth fruit meet for repentance, and answerable to our Heavenly calling; whether you take it in actu elicito, or in actu imperato, whether you take it in the habit, or in the Act, which is misericordia eliquata, that which runs from it in the melting as it were: the love of mercy includes both, both a sweet and heavenly disposition, a rich treasury of goodness, full and ready to empty itself, and those several acts which are drawn out of it, or rather which it commands. And here though miracles be ceased, yet by the blessing of a God of mercy, it retains a miraculous power; it heals the sick, binds up the wounded raises the poor out of the dust, and in a manner raises the dead to life again, upholds the drooping and the fainting spirit which is ready to fail; intercedes, and fights against the cruelty of persecutors; fills up the breaches which they make, raises up that which they ruin; clothes the naked, whom they have stripped; builds up what they have pulled down; and is as a quickening power, a resurrection to those whom the hand of wickedness and injustice hath laid low, and even buried in the dust. A branch it is which shadows and refresheth all those who are diminished, and brought low by oppression, evil and sorrow.  
And these too, Justice and Mercy, are neighbouring branches, so enwrapped, and entwined one within the other, that you cannot sever them. For where there is no Justice there can be no mercy; and where there is no Mercy, there Justice is but Gall and wormwood: and therefore in the Scripture they go hand in hand, unto the upright man there ariseth light in darkness, he is gracious, and full of compassion, and righteous. Psal. 112.4. There is an eye of Justice, a single and upright eye, as well as an eye of mercy: There is an eye that looks right on, Proverb. 4.25. and there is a bountiful eye, Prov. 22.9. and if you shut but one of them, you are in darkness; he that hath an evil eye to strip his brother, can never see to cloth him; he whose feet are swift to shed blood, will be but a cripple when he is called to the house of mourning; and if his bowels be shut up, his hand will be soon stretched out to beat his fellow-servants. 
Ps. 147.1.  It becometh the just to be thankful. In their mouth praise is comely, it is a song, 'tis music, and it becometh the Just to be merciful and liberal; out of their heart mercy flows kindly, streams forth like the River out of Eden, to water the dry places of the earth; there you shall find gold, and good gold, Bdellium, and the Oynx stone; all that is precious in the sight of God and man. But the heart of an unjust man is as a rock on which you may strike and strike again, but no water will flow out, but instead thereof gall and wormwood, blood and fire, and the vapour of smoke. 
joel 2.30. Prov. 12.10.  The tender mercies, the bowels of the wicked are cruel, their kisses are wounds, their favours reproaches, their Indulgences anathemas; their bread is full of gravel, and their water tainted with blood. If their craft or power take all, and their seeming mercy, their hypocrisy put back a part, that part is nothing, or but trouble and vexation of spirit. Thus do these two branches grow and flourish, and bring forth fruit, and thus do they whither and die together.  
And here we have a fair and a full vintage, for indeed mercy is as the vine, which yields wine to cheer the hearts of men; hath nothing of the Bramble, nothing of the fire, nothing that can devour; it yields much fruit, but we cannot stand to gather all. I might spread before you the rich mantle of mercy, and display each particular beauty and glory of it; but it will suffice to set it up as the object of our Love: for as Misery is the object of our Mercy, so is Mercy the object of our Love; And we may observe, it is not here to do mercifully, as before to do justly (and yet if we love not Justice, we cannot do it) but in express terms the Lord requires that we love mercy, that is, that we put it on, wear it as a robe of Glory, delight in it, make it (as God doth make it his) our chiefest attribute to exalt, and superexaltate; to make it triumph over Justice itself. For Justice and Honesty gives every man his own but Mercy opens those Treasuries which Justice might lock up; and takes from us that which is legally ours; makes others gatherers with us, partakers of our basket, and brings them under our own vine and figtree; Et haec est victoria, this is the victory and triumph of Mercy.  
Let us then draw the lines by which we are to pass, and we shall first, show you Mercy in the fruit it yields; secondly, in its root: First, in its proper act or motion, casting bread upon the waters, and raising the poor out of the dust: Secondly, in the form which produceth this act, or the principle of this motion, which is the habit, the affection, the love of mercy; for so we are commanded, not only to show forth our mercy, but to love it; for what doth the Lord require, but to love mercy? etc.  
We begin with the first; and the proper act of mercy is to flow, to spend itself, and yet not be spent, to relieve our brethren in misery, and in all the degrees that lead to it, necessities, impotencies, distresses, dangers, defects; This is it which the Lord requires. And howsoever flesh and blood may be ready to persuade us that we are left at large to our own wills, and may do what we will with our own, yet if we consult with the Oracle of God, we shall find that these reciprocal offices of mercy which pass between man and man, are a debt; That we are bound as much to do good to others, as not to injure them; to supply their wants, as not to rob them; to reach forth a hand to help them, as not to smite them with the fist of wickedness; and though my hundred measures of wheat be my own, and I may demand them, yet there is a voice from heaven, and from the mercy-seat, which bids me take the bill and sit down quickly and write fifty. Do we shut up our bowels and our hands together? Behold, Habemus legem, we have a Law, and the first and greatest Law, the Law of Charity, to open them. 'Tis true, what we gain by the sweat of our brows, what Honesty and Industry, or the Law hath sealed unto us, is ours ex ass, wholly and entirely ours, nor can any Hand but that of Violence divide it from us: but yet Habemus legem, we have a Law, another Law, which doth not take from us the propriety of our Goods, but yet binds us to dispense and distribute them: In the same Court-roll of Heaven we are made both Proprietaries, & Stewards. The Law of God as well as of Man is Evidence for us, that our possessions are ours; but it is Evidence against us, if we use them not to that end for which God made them ours. They are ours, to have and to hold, nor can any Law of man divorce them from us, or question us: For what Action can be drawn against want of mercy? who was ever yet impleaded for not giving an Alms at his door? what bar can you bring the Miser to? who ever was arraigned for doing no good? but yet in the Law of God, and in the Gospel of Christ, which is a Law of Grace, we find an action drawn de non vestiendis nudis, for not clothing the Naked, not feeding the Hungry, not visiting the Sick; I, saith Nazianzen, could peradventure be willing, That Mercy and Bounty were not Necessary, but arbitrary; not under a Law, but presented by way of Counsel and advice (for the flesh is weak, and would go to Heaven with as little cost and trouble as may be) but then the mention of the Left hand and the right; of the Goats; of the torments they shall be thrown into, not who have invaded other men's goods, but who have not given theirs; not who have beat down, but who have not supported these Temples of the Holy Ghost; this is that which strikes a terror through me, and makes me think and resolve, That I am as much bound to do acts of mercy, as I am not to do an injury; as much bound to feed the poor man, as I am not to oppress and murder him: To show mercy to others, is not an Evangelicall Counsel, it is a Law. And therefore as Homer tells us, when he speaks of rivers or birds, That men did not call them by their proper names, for the Gods had other names for them, Chalcidem homines, Cymindim Dii vocant;  
(and he speaks of a certain bird) so when we call that ours, which our net hath taken in, our wit and industry hath brought in unto us, we speak after the manner of men, we speak the language of the world, in the Dialect of Mammon: but when we call them ours, and make them ours for the use and benefit of others, we do à Christo discere disciplinam, as Tertullian speaks; we speak in the language of our Saviour, in that phrase and sense which God and the Holy Saints do ever take them. Did I say, It was the language of men? It is the language of the two daughters of the Horseleech, of Covetousness and Ambition, 
Prov. 36.14,16. Sanguis Daemonis pabulum. Tertull. Apol. c. 22.  Give, Give, always taking in, never emptying themselves: It is the Dialect of that generation, whose Teeth are swords, and their Jaw-teeths as knives to devour the poor of the earth: It is the voice of Luxury and riot, which must be fed as devils are, with the blood of others; who like that Behemoth can drink up rivers of blood; It is the language of the Devil himself, who is no helper but a destroyer. The language of Nature is more mild and gentle; 
Tull. l. 1. Oss.  misericordiâ nihil est naturae hominis accommodatius, saith Tully; There is nothing more suitable with the nature of man, than mercy, and a desire to do good to others; for when thou seest a man thou beholdest thyself as in a glass; in him thou beholdest thyself, now cheerful and anon drooping; now standing and anon sinking; now in purple and anon naked; now full and anon hungry; thou seest thyself in the weakness, in the mutability, in the mortality of thy condition, and his present necessities are but a lesson, an argument, which plainly demonstrate, and to thy very eye, what thou or any other man may be; and withal a silent and powerful appeal to thy mercy, a secret beseeching thee, I might say, a Legal requiring thee, to do unto him as thou wouldst be done to in the like case, which thou art as liable to as he; to be of the same mind, which thou wilt be certainly, when with this Lazar thou liest at the gates of another.  
But if this light of Nature be not bright enough, 
Errat olim is●a ●…ntenti●: v●mo 〈◊〉 nas●i●ur, moriturus sihi. Tert. de pall. c. 5.  yet by the light of Scripture, by the light of the Gospel we may easily discern the truth of this parallel. For the Servant of God, the true Christian is born again, not for himself alone, but for all those who are parts of the same building, and members of the same body; If one member suffer, all the members suffer with it, Rom. 12.20. And this makes not only all the riches, but withal, all the miseries, all the necessities, all the afflictions of our brethren Ours. And what a Celestial Harmony doth mercy make, which puts those who are at liberty, in bonds with the prisoners; which makes the rich lie down with the poor, the strong sympathise with the weak? what a Harmony is that which riseth out of such discords? when the joyful heart weeps with them that weep, and the sorrowful Spirit rejoiceth with them that rejoice; when all men are of the same mind one with another, the rich naked with the poor, and the poor abounding with the rich; the whole Church imprisoned in one man, and every man comforting his bondage with the peace and prosperity of the whole? This is an Harmony indeed; but, I fear, I may say, it is like the Harmony of the spheres, which was never heard, or at least we have more reason than we would, to believe, that there is scarce any such music in our days. But thus it should be, and this music Mercy doth make.  
I know the ways of God are past finding out, and the reasons of his judgements, saith Basil, are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, are as Jewels fit to be hid and reserved in the Treasuries of God alone, and are understood only by that Wisdom which sends them abroad: yet if you ask why one is born a servant, and another free; why one grinds at the mill, and another sits on the throne; why one lies at the gates, whilst another feasts in his Palace? I may with confidence give you this for one: This God doth, to exercise the patience and humility of the one, and to stir up and awake the mercy of the other. The rich and poor meet together, the Lord is the maker of them both, saith Solomon, Prov. 22.2. not that his immediate hand made them rich and poor; poured down with his left hand riches into the bosom of the one, and withdrew it from the other, and so left him naked; For this is not manifest; For God forbidden that we should have such a conceit of God, that he should fill the usurers bags, or enlarge the territories of the wicked; nor can we say, that every poor man was predestinated to beggary: nor make it good, that he hath thus discerned and distinguished them, (for we know Luxury and Idleness clothes many with rags, and Industry gathers much, and Craft and Power more) but he was the maker of them both; They were both the work of his hands, and from his hands they were the same, though now the fashion of the world hath brought in a disparity between them; and God (saith the Father) did make both poor and rich, ut in pauperibus divitum misericordiam probaret, that he might make the want of the poor as a touchstone to try the mercy of the rich. For no doubt he could send the Ravens to feed them; he could send Angels to feed them; he could let down all manner of flesh in a sheet, as he did to Peter: his providence is never at a stand, but can find out ways which we cannot think of; but Christ hath so ordered it, That though we cannot have him, yet the poor and miserable we shall always have with us, ut locupletem aliena inopia ditaret, that what all the world cannot, another's poverty may do, that is, enrich and blesse●s; & tu neminem praetereas, ne is quem praeteris Christus sit, and let thy mercy, saith Austin, pass by none, lest it pass by Christ himself. This he put into the Covenant which he made with us, when he was on the earth, and sealed it with his blood; and now he looks that we should make it good, and to that end presents and offers himself unto us in these, and even bows before us, to the end of the world. And certainly it is strange, that we should thus stand out with him, and deny him that which is his by Covenant; that we should lock up all from him, who opened his heart, and let out his blood for us; but so it is; the vice we delight in, makes that virtue which is contrary to it a punishment; and when we love the world, to give an Alms is as irksome and grievous to us as to pay a forfeiture; Liberality is a penalty, and therefore we use all means (but pay down nothing but excuses) to take it off; mercy is no thriving virtue, but seems to come upon us as a Thief and a Robber, to strip and spoil us, and to make us like unto them whom she binds us to relieve, and therefore we shut her up in a narrow heart, and an earthy mind; and if there be any in us, it is as a fountain sealed up, which sends not forth a drop; or a garden enclosed, where no man can come to fill his hand. This hard opinion the world hath of mercy, as of the most useless, the most unprofitable and disadvantageous thing in the world; as the nurse of prodigality and the mother of beggary; as that which lets out our blood and life to feed and strengthen others: we will therefore in the next place, as Tertullia's phrase is, in hunc ictum considerare, have an eye on this blow, and we shall avoid it with ease; for indeed it is rather a proffer then a blow, and it will soon appear, that it is mercy alone that makes our wealth ours; that it is never more ours then when we part with it; that Alienation is our best Assurance, and continues it to us for ever.  
For first: It is but an error to imagine, that God opens his hand and fills our basket, and gives us the good things of the world for ourselves alone, and our own use; that he opens the windows of Heaven, and drops down his blessings into us, there to settle, and putrify, and corrupt; for this is, saith Basil, as if a man who made haste to the Theatre, should think all others excluded, because he came first: this is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, to appropriate to thyself those things which are common to all; to lock up that in thy chest which should fill the bellies of the poor. The goods of the Church in former ages were called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the wealth of God and the poor, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the things of God. 
Tert. Apol. c. 39  Tertullian calls them deposita pietatis, the pledges of mercy deposited in our hands; and if I should call the wealth of Christians so, I should not err, 
Bern. l. 4. de consid.  for all are bound to count them so, Patrimonium Crucifixi, the Patrimony of their crucified Saviour, given them not only to feed and cloth themselves, but to supply the necessity of others, who have a right, (which indeed they cannot challenge) have something in our Granaries and wardrobes, to which we only keep the key, with a charge from Heaven to open them, when Nakedness and misery come but so near as to knock at our eyes. For God who gave them, is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the great auditor, who will take a strict account, if we do 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, use them as our own (as the Ancients use to speak) or spend that in wantonness which should strengthen the weak knees, and hands that hang down: we are ready to say, saith the Father, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whom do I wrong in keeping of my own? and must I be cruel to myself, that I may be merciful to others? must I put my knife to my throat, that a stranger may be fed? and we are easily persuaded that we are good Christians, if we be not Foxes to deceive, or Lions to devour them. The greatest part of our Piety is Negative (and would we did but make that good) not to oppress, not to defraud, not to take away, with us is to be Merciful; as Thiefs, saith Salvian out of Tully, qui putant se vitam dare quibus non eripiunt who will say they give him his life, whom they do not kill: and yet if Mercy open not my bowels, and my hand too, I may wrong my brother when I do him no harm; I may defraud and spoil him when I take nothing from him. I wrong no man, is a poor Apology: why man? thou wrongest the King of Kings, 
A● vol●…n atem 〈…〉 uti 〈…〉. Bern de ●…teriori. dom. c. 25.  when thou sufferest his subjects to perish; and this Negative Mercy is no better than theft. The bread which thou layest up is not thine, but the bread of the hungry; The garment which thou hast locked up in thy chest, is the garment of the Naked; The gold which thou hidest in the earth is the Revenue of the poor and needy; as he said of his writings, omne tuum, & nihil tuum, All is thine, and nothing is thine.  
For in the second place: That is the best use we can put them to, the true use which God that gave them hath taught us, to use them that they may stead us in our greatest necessity; to open our hand, that it may be filled; to water, that we may be watered again, saith Solomon, Proverb. 11.25. to make them our friends, saith a wiser than Solomon. To make that which is a Parasite to deceive us, a snare to entrap us, an enemy to fight against us, a friend to help and secure us; so to use it, that it may return multiplied into our hands. For what is properly gain? is not this, for a mite to receive a talon; for one seed, one work of Mercy, to receive an hundred fold? Negotiatio est aliqua amittere ut plura lucreris, saith the Father, It is a kind of traffic and merchandise to lay out something that you may gain more; 
Tertull. ad ●…nt. c. 2.  to venture a knife or bugle, to bring back a Diamond; to treasure up by spending, to increase our stock by diminishing it, and by losing all to purchase more. Who was ever, saith Julian the Apostate, the poorer for what he gave? and of himself he tells us, that whatsoever he laid out to supply the wants of others, was returned back again by the Gods (as the Apostate had now learned to speak) into his hands with usury: For when his liberality had well-near exhausted his own estate, his grandmothers happily and opportunely fell into his hands. What that cursed Apostate falsely attributes to his false Gods, that the God of Gods doth most exactly perform, and hath set up his Assurance-office, to pay us back in our own coin, or if not, in that which cannot be valued, being of an inestimable price. I make no doubt but God's Mercy is ready to shine upon ours, for he loves it, and loves to look on't. I doubt not but he rewards our Mercy with the blessings of this life; for a cup of cold water, which the hand of mercy fills, and pours out, gives many times riches and honour though we perceive it not, but attribute it to something else; to our wisdom and industry rather than to that Providence which always waiteth upon mercy, blessing it in the work, and blessing it when the work is done: but what are these to that reward which is laid up for those who do seminare in benedictionibus, who sow plentifully? what are riches that have wings, to immortality? what's a Palace to heaven? we visit the sick, and the spirit of comfort visits us; we serve our brethren, and the Angels minister unto us; we cover the naked with our cloth, and God clothes us with joy; we convert a sinner, and sline as stars; we part with a few shekels of silver, and the hand of Mercy works and turns them into a crown; we sow Temporal, Transitory things, and the Harvest is eternity: whilst we make them ours, they are weak and impotent, but when we part with them, they work miracles, and remove mountains, all that is between us and blessedness; all the riches in the world will not add one cubit to our stature, but if we thus tread them under our feet, they will lift us up as High as Heaven: Nulla sunt potiora quam de misericordia compendia, The best gains are those we purchase with our loss; and the best way to find our bread, is to cast it upon the waters.  
Will you see the practice of the Primitive Christians? I do the rather mention it, because, methinks, I see the face of Christendom much changed and altered, and Christians (whose Plea is Mercy, whose Glory is Mercy, who but for Mercy were of all men most miserable; who have no other business in the world, then to save and help themselves and others) using all means to dry up the Fountain of Mercy, shaping to themselves vi tutem duram & ferream, bringing forth Mercy in a coat of a Mail, and like Goliath with an Helmet of Brass, standing as Centinel, as a Guard about our wealth, with this loud prohibition to all that stand in need, Touch not, Taste not, Handle not. Let us therefore look back and see what they were in former times, and we shall find them so unlike to those of succeeding generations, that they will rather be brought under censure, then set up as a pattern for imitation; for we are as far removed from their Piety, as we are from the Times wherein they lived. They, I am sure, thought Mercy a virtue, and the chief virtue of the Gospel; a virtue in which they thought it impossible to exceed; and made it their daily bread to feed others; Melior est racematio, etc. their Grapes were much better than our Vintage. Justin Martyr in his Apology for the Christians, tells us, That that which they possessed they did 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, bring it into a common Treasury: Tertullian calls it Arcam communem, a common chest: 
Tert. Apol.  Nor was this Benovolence exacted as a Tribute from those who desired to be joined with them in communion, (as the Heathen did calumniate) but every man did sponte confer, saith Tertullian, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, 
Tert. Apol. c. 42.  saith Justin Martyr, voluntarily, and what he would. And that which was gathered was committed to the hands or trust of the Bishop, and after (when he was taken up with other matters more proper for his calling) to the Deacons, which by them was laid out for the clothing of the naked, the maintenance of the poo●e, of Orphans, and old men; to redeem Captives, to secure men who had been shipwrackt by Sea, and those who were in prison for their profession, and the Gospel of Christ: Plus nostra misericordia insumit vicatim, qu m vestra superstitio Templatim, saith Tertullian: Our Mercy lays out more in the streets on the poor, than your Superstition doth on your Gods in your Temples; our Religion hath a more open hand then your Idolatry; and to this end they had matriculas egenorum, certain Catalogues of the names of their poor Brethren, personarum miserabilium, persons, as they termed them, miserable. How many of them were there, who as Aristotle speaks, did 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, did greatly exceed in their liberality, 
Aristot. l. 10. Eth.  and did seem to be more merciful than the Lord requires? Nazianzen tells us of his Mother Nonna, 
Naz. Orat. 10.  that she was possessed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, with an immoderate and unmeasurable desire of bestowing her goods; That she was willing not only to sell all that she had, but even her very children, for the use and relief of the poor. Gorgonia her daughter sucked this pious and melting disposition, though not from her breasts, yet from her good example; who stripped herself of all, committed her body to the earth, and left no other Legacy to her children but her great example, and the imitation of her virtues, which she thought was enough to enrich them, though they had nothing else. Saint Hierom tells us of his Paula, that though she were Eminent in many virtues, yet her Liberality did exceed, and like a swelling river, could not be kept within the banks; hac habebat voti ut mendica moreretur, she wished for that which most men do fear as much as death itself, and her great ambition it was that she might die a beggar. We might instance in more; and these examples have shined in the Church as stars of the fairest magnitude; but after-ages have thought them but comets, looked upon them, and feared them; and though they know not well how to condemn this exceeding piety, yet they soon persuade themselves, and conclude, that they are not bound to follow it, and so are bound up as in a frost, in the coldness and hardness of their hearts, because some did seem to overflow and pass their limit. These indeed are strange examples, 
Easil. orat in samem & siccitat.  but yet Saint Basil delivers a doctrine as strange (for he would not give it as his counsel, if it had not truth to commend and confirm it) Licèt unus tibi tantùm panis sit, And if thou hast but one loaf left in thy house, saith he, yet if a poor man stand at thy doors, and ask for Bread, bring it forth and give it him, with thy hands lifted up to Heaven; whilst thou dost that which God requires, and for thy own supply reliest on the Providence of Thy Father which is in Heaven; do it in his Name, and in his Name thou shalt be fed assuredly; thou hast parted with thy one loaf here, but his power, to whom thou gavest it, can and will multiply it; for they that thus give, are as wells which are soon drawn dry, but fill the faster, and the more they are exhausted the fuller they are. I know not whether it may be safe to deliver such a doctrine in these days, and therefore we will not insist upon it; and these examples which I have held up to you, may be Transcendent, that we may not bind every man to reach them. These pious women may seem perhaps to have stretched beyond the line, and exceeded the bounds of moderation; but yet we cannot but think, that this was truly to go out of the world, whilst they were in it; and we may observe, That this excess is incident to great and Heroic spirits, who (as it is said of Homer and Sophocles, sometimes swelling above that proper and ruled sublimity of speech, wherein they did excel) do generose labi, do err and fall more nobly, and with greater commendation, then others who spin an even but course thread; and are so far from rising too high, that they are flat, and always lie upon the ground. I know that all our actions are to be squared by the rule, and that it may savour of great folly to be wiser than that wisdom that taught us; but yet I cannot think that a God of Mercy, that loves it in himself, and in his creature, will look in anger upon those who through too much Fervour and Ambition of doing all, do more than is required, but favour and reward them rather; when he will severely punish that negligence that binds our hands in our bosom, that we do nothing. Melius ultra quam citra stat misericordia, Thee is less danger, (in the works of Mercy) to exceed then to fall short; I may say, less danger in superstition then in profaneness; less danger in giving all then in giving nothing; and I can see no reason there should be bounds set to our Mercy, for this is the way to shut it up quite, and then we can set the bounds where we please; our non ultra will be a penny, a mite, a cup of cold water, and at last nothing. I will not censure the devotion of these women, and I need not take any pains to frame an Apology for them; He that shall be so bold as to pass sentence against them, will betray in himself so much love of the world as will deserve a heavier doom; and although I may not press it as a duty on every man, yet thus much we may gain by it, as to conclude, That if these women attained to this so high perfection, as to be willing to strip themselves of all, and give it to the poor, It is not so hard a matter as we make it, to part with our superfluities; as easy for Mercy to open our hands now as then; and if this excess of theirs were as a rock which we should avoid (as indeed it is not) yet what need they to fear it who are so unwilling to set out, or to follow them but so far as to the mean, and those Tropics which we ourselves set up, and do acknowledge in our course? 
Julian. Epist. 49 & Fragment ep. edit. Petau.  Julian the Apostate in one of his Epistles, observing how glorious and renowned the Christians were grown for this virtue, thought it a great piece of his art and cunning to lay this imputation and slur upon it, That their acts of Mercy were done rather out of policy than devotion, and were rather a cheat then charity; that by their liberality they did countenance and commend their Religion, which had nothing else to speak for it; and with this show of bounty, with the Ceruse and paint of communicating to the necessities of others, did cover the horror (as he there impiously speaks) of their profession; and thus did entice and draw others to their faction, as men do children with a cake, whom they mean afterwards to destroy. If the Apostate were now alive, he would not be put to the Labour of his Brain, nor forced to ask counsel of his wits to find out such a malicious lie; for our Mercy, for the most part, is in the heart (I mistake) I would it were there, for then upon occasion it would evaporate and show itself: no, It floats on the Tongue, and the countenance of it is wan and pale, without paint or dress: Our Alms are verba sine penu & pecunia, words without works: what need this ceremonious, expensive Mercy? It is enough if our charity speak, and we show our love to Mercy even then when we have shut it up in the inward man, and do but think of it.  
But let us not deceive ourselves; This duty is written in lasting characters to all posterity. Poverty and contempt of the world will be beatitudes to the world's end. Mercy and compassion are everlasting duties; to part with our coat to our brother, is as necessary now as when Christ first taught it. Why should we paraphrase mercy, and coin distinctions, and draw out our limitations, as it were to copse her up and confine her, that she shall not move our tongue or hand, but when our lusts will give her leave? Be ye merciful as your Heavenly Father is merciful; why that's impossible, and therefore because we cannot reach so far, we will not stir a foot. Lend looking for nothing again; That cannot bind us, in the letter; and so, though we may be persuaded to lend, yet our covetousness shall have line enough to reach the debtor, and take him by the throat, and make him lay down what he owes, with the advantage. Go sell all thou hast; that was spoken to the young man, and so concerns us not; 'Tis true, to sell all and give it to the poor, was a particular precept to the young man in the Gospel, and with this command, Christ made a window into his breast, and discovered the rottenness of his heart. But yet this precept is not so particular to the young man, but that it may and doth concern those who are fallen into the same snare of the devil, and are ready to be strangled 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with the same golden halter, and in this respect it may concern more than a many. For should our Saviour come with his fan in his hand, he would find too much of this chaff, discover too many who are ready to subscribe to the Decalogue, to those commands which they are too ready to break, but have no hand at all to fling one mite into the treasury; too many so like this young man in this, that they may well receive this strict command, Go sell all that you have and give it to the poor. For the love of the world is a foul humour, and no other pill can purge it out; nor can this Augaean Stable, the heart of a covetous man be purged without a Hercules, otherwise then by a strong and violent evacuation: No better remedy against the love of the world then thus exhaeredare se seculo, then to abandon the world and disinherit ourselves of all right and title to it, as the Philosopher tells us. To make a crooked staff strait, the best way is to bow it violently the other way; and if this physic will not purge and cure him, no power, no miracle, no mercy can save him.  
I am very willing so far to be as a John Baptist, as a forerunner to Mercy, as to fill up every valley, and to bring every mountain and hill low, to make smooth every rough passage, and so prepare a way, and make the paths of Mercy strait, and in doing this I prepare a way for Christ himself; for Christ and Mercy never go asunder. I would not see her circumscribed and drawn within that compass which the flesh will make narrow enough with glosses, distinctions and limitations: If it be Mercy, it cannot be thus shut up, but will break through and thine every where, and in its full strength; and scatter every mist, disperse every cloud, and is most seen in darkness; If it be a man, and miserable, the makes haste to help him; she asks no questions, makes no pause, nor deliberation, stands not upon circumstances of time or place, or measure of what, or where, or when, or how much; she doth not examine nor catechise his person, 
Ubicunque est homo, ibi beneficio locus est. Sen. l. 4. de benef. c. 24.  and then raise scruples (for a scrupulous mercy is but a conniving cruelty; it doth not hurt, but it doth not help) she sees him cast down, and she employs the understanding to find out ways and means, she opens the ear to hearken to complaints, she makes the tongue as the pen of a ready writer, and speaks to his heart, and stretcheth forth the hand to lift him up; her haste is her wisdom; her loss, her improvement; her motion, her light; her actuating is the next object; her life, is misery; her method poseth the wisemen of this world; her art is simplicity; her soloecismes, Rules, her strange works are the laughter of fools, and the music of Angels; In a word, she ends not but in her selfe; for if it end, (where the object is seen) it is not mercy; and thus she leads us on, and grows up with us to that strength, that we are able to Die for the brethren, and then, and not till then the merciful man and his mercy end together; and yet they do not end, for they shall be had in everlasting remembrance.  
And we shall not think so strange of this Operation and Magistery of mercy, If in the next place we consider what spring, 
Op●rari est l●rgiri ●le masynam. Tertull. de Idolo●at. c. 23. Cyptian. l●b. inscripsit, de opere & elemosynis.  what principle it is, which gins and continues its motion, and sets it a working; and Saint Paul placeth it in the inward man, in the very bowels of him; put on therefore bowels of mercy, Coloss. 3.12. bowels which may sound as an harp, Is. 16.11. to raise and refresh every drooping soul. For there is a melting as well as a flowing, which is nothing else but compassion or a fellow-feeling; and as every Natural act and motion hath its principle from whence it proceeds, so have our spiritual duties their form, as it were, to give them life and motion; and when this is wanting, we fail and sink in our performance, are but Idols; have eyes, but see not; have mouths, but speak not; have hands, but cannot reach them forth.  
Now compassion is the spring and principle of Mercy, when it exerciseth its act, when it teacheth the ignorant, or feeds the poor. This wrought the miracle of the loaves, Matth. 15. for Christ tells his Disciples, I have compassion on the multitude, and he multiplies them. This forced his tears from him, and drew them down his cheeks: For when he came near, he beheld the City, and wept over it. Luk. 19.41. In a word, this nailed him to the Cross. Nor can we take it ill, or be troubled to hear of a compassionate and weeping Christ, unless we be troubled also that he was a man; for never did the hand reach forth relief, nor the tongue speak comfort, till compassion had melted the heart; never was there any true and natural motion without a spring; nor was there any reason it should be expunged and left our, for we read it again John 10. and Jesus wept. It is no wisdom so to honour Christ, as to take from his humanity. This wisdom comes not è-porticu Solomonis, from the porch of the Temple, but from the Gallery and Schools of the Stoics who took away all passion, and with it the very Nature of man. It was extreme folly with them to be compassionate; and as they took them away quite, so the Peripatetics left them, but with a curb, to be stopped and moderated; and here they both run divers ways, and both mist of the right. 
Lactant. l. 6. de ver. cult. c. 14, 15, 16, 17.  For as Lactantius well observes, neither are the Affections quite to be extirpated and rooted out, as the Stoics hold; nor yet always to be checked and bounded, as the Peripatetics would have it, but to be levelled and directed on the right object: If you set your compass, and steer to the right point, you cannot fill your sails too much: If Jerusalem, Jerusalem, now shaking, tottering, and falling, be in your eyes, you cannot weep too much; If a multitude now ready to famish, you cannot be too compassionate; If your affections be set right, your anger cannot be too loud, for no indignation can be raised up equal to your sin: your love cannot be too intensive, for you cannot love virtue enough (the love of a friend, the love of a woman comes short, and will never reach it;) your sorrow cannot be too excessive; for how can they be cast down too much, who are fallen from God? He that goes out of his way, though his pace be gentle, yet must needs walk with danger, every step is an error; but he that keeps on in the right way, cannot possibly make too much speed. No; compassion is so far from being imputed as a defect, that it is that by which we come nearest to Christ himself; 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, It is a divine thing, saith Isidor, to be compassionate; an imitation of him who is a Father of Mercies, and whose compassions never fail. Lament. 3.22. And therefore God forbidden, saith Saint Austin, That, though we pray against them, and would use our strength, and wit, and utmost power to keep them off, we should take off our eye, as loath to see, or shut our ears, as unwilling to hear the complaints, and grievings, and miseries of our brethren; It is indeed a sad spectacle, but a blessed occasion to call up our compassion, and to draw out our Mercy into act; to kindle the fire within us that it may break forth into a pure flame, to warm and comfort them: And what is a Christian man's life? what is the business of his life, but to watch, and observe, and lay hold of occasions? to look upon that fire which may melt him; that misery of others which may make an impression, and leave its image in his heart? which will bring in that heavenly community, cùm quamvis alii ferendo patiantur, alii cognoscendo compatiantur, communis tamen sit tribulatio; when mercy possesseth the heart of all men with the smart of that affliction which but one man lies under, making every man a partaker, though not in the loss, yet in the sorrow.  
For this compassion is bound up as it were in the very nature and constitution of the Church; and it is as impossible to be a part of the Church without it, as it is to be a man without the use of reason; nay we so far come short of being men as we are defective in humanity. All Christians are the parts of the Church, and all must sustain one another, and this is the just and full Interpretation of that of our Saviour, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself, and then thou wilt pity him as thyself; Tolle invidiam, & tuum est quod habet, Take away envy, and all that he hath is thine; and take away hardness of heart, and all that thou hast is his. Take away malice, and all his virtues are thine; and take away pride, and thy Glories are his. Art thou a part of the Church? thou hast a part in every port, and every part hath a portion in thee. We are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, compacted together by that which every joint supplies, Eph. 4.16. a similitude and resemblance taken from the curtains in the Temple, saith learned Grotius, Exod. 26. whereof every one hath its measure; but yet they are all coupled together one to another, v. 3. and by their loops which lay hold one of another, v. 5. and like those curtains, not to be drawn but together, not to rejoice, not to weep, not to suffer but together. The word Church is but as a second notion, and it is made a term of art, and every man almost, saith Luther, abuseth it, draws it forth after his own image, takes it commonly in that sense which may favour him so far, as to leave in him a persuasion that he is a true part of it; and thus many enter the Church, and are shut out of heaven. We are told of a visible Church, and the Church in some sense is visible; but that the greatest part of this Church hath wanted bowels; that some parts of it have been without sense or feeling, besmered and defiled with the blood of their brethren, is as visible as the Church. We have heard of an infallible Church, we have heard it, and believe it not; for how can she be infallible who is so ready to design all those to death and hell who deny it? If it be a Church, it is a Church with horns to push at the nations, or an army with banners and swords; we have long talked of a Reformed Church, and we make it our crown and rejoicing, but it would concern us to look about us and take heed, That we do not reform so as to purge out all compassion also; for cercainly to put off all bowels, is not (as some zealots have easily persuaded themselves) to put on the new man. Talk not of a visible, Infallible, or a Reformed Church; God send us a Compassionate Church; a title, which will more fit and become her, than those names which do not beautify and adorn, but accuse and condemn her when she hath no heart. What visible Church is that which is seen in blood? what infallible Church is that whose very bowels are cruel? what reformed Church is that which hath purged out all compassion? visible, and yet not seen; infallible, and deceived; reform, and yet in its filth; Monstrum; Horrendum, Inform, This is a misshapen monster, not a Church. The True Church is made up of bowels; every part of it is tender and relenting, not only when itself is touched, but when the others are moved; as you see in a well-set instrument, if you touch but one string, the others will tremble and shake. And this sense, this fellow-feeling, is the fountain from whence this silver stream of Mercy flows, the spring and first mover of those outward acts, which are seen in that bread of ours which floats upon the waters, in the face and on the backs of the poor; for not then when we see our brethren in affliction, when we look upon them, and pass by them, but when we see them, and have compassion on them, we shall bind up their wounds, and pour in wine and oil, and take care for them: For till the heart be melted there will nothing flow. We see alms given every day, and we call them acts of piety; but whether the hand of Mercy reach them forth or no we know not; our motions, all of them are not from a right spring; vain glory may be liberal; Intemperance may be liberal; Pride may be a benefactor; Ambition must not be a Niggard; Covetousness itself sometimes yields, and drops a penny; and importunity is a wind which will set that wheel a going, which had otherwise stood still. We may read large catalogues of munificent men, but many names which we read there may be but the names of men, and not of the Merciful: compassion is the inward and true principle, begetting in us the love of Mercy, which completes, and perfects, and crownes every act; gives it its true form and denomination; gives a sweet smell, and fragrant savour to mary's ointment, for she that poured it forth loved much, Luk. 7.47. I may say compassion is the love of the Mercy, & plus est diligere quàm facere, saith Hilary, It is a great deal more to love a good work then to do it; to love virtue, then to bring it into act; to love mercy, then to show it; it doth supply many times the place of the outward act, but without it the act is nothing, or something worse. It hath a privilege to bring that upon account which was never done; to be entitled to that which we do not, which we cannot do; to make the weak man strong, and the poor man liberal, and the ignorant man a counsellor; For he that loves mercy would, and therefore doth more than he can do; as David may be said to build the Temple, though he laid not a stone of it, for God tells him, he did well, That he had it in his heart; and thus our love may build a Temple, though we fall and die before a stone be laid.  
Now this love of mercy is not so soon wrought in the heart as we may imagine; as every glimmering of light doth not make it day; It is a work of labour and travel, and of curious observance and watchfulness over ourselves; It will cost us many a combat and luctation with the world and the flesh; many a falling out with ourselves; many a love must be digged up by the roots, before we can plant this in our hearts; for it will not grow up with luxury and wantonness; with pride, or self-love; you never see these together in the same soil: The Apostle tells us we must put it on; and ● the garments which adorn the soul are not so soon put on as those which cloth the body; we do not put on mercy as we do our mantle, for when we do, every puff of wind, every distaste blows it away; but mercy must be so put on, that it may even cleave to the soul, and be a part of it; That every thought may be a melting thought, every word as oil, and every work a blessing. Then we love mercy, when we fling off all other respects, and whatsoever may either shrink up or straiten our bowels, or seal up our lips, or whither our hands; when we look upon the world but as our stage, where we must act our parts, and display the glories of mercy; where we must waste ourselves, drop our tears, run in to secure those who are roughly handled in it, and thus tread it under our feet, and then take our Exit and go out. When we can forget our honour, and remember the poor; forsake all rather than our brethren, and desire not to be rich but in good works; when we have so incorporated out brethren into ourselves, that we stand and fall, are happy and miserable together; when we consider them as engrafted into the same Christ, and in him to be preferred before the whole world, and to be looked upon as those for whom we must die, Then we love mercy, than we are merciful as our heavenly Father is merciful.  
Thus if we be qualified, we shall become the Temples and habitations of Mercy; and as our bodies shall after their resurrection, so our souls shall here have novas dotes, shall be endowed with activity, cheerfulness, and purity. And first, our mercy will be in a manner Natural unto us: secondly, it will be Constant: thirdly, it will be Sincere: fourthly, it will be Delightful to us. It will be Natural, not forced; it will be Constant, not flitting; It will be Sincere, not feigned; and it will be Delightful, that we shall long to bring it into act.  
And first; we then love it, when it is in a manner made natural to us; for we never fully see the beauty of it, till we are made New Creatures, and have new eyes; then as the new creature cannot sin, as Saint John speaks, that is, can do nothing that is contrary and destructive to that form which constitutes a new creature, no more can a merciful man do any thing which will not savour of mercy; and doth as naturally exercise himself in it, as the Sun doth send forth its beams, or the Heavens their influence. For the Spirit of God hath made his Heart a Fountain of Mercy, as he made the Sun a Fountain of Light; and if he break not forth into action, it is from defect of means, or occasion, or some cross accident which comes over him, which do but cloud and eclipse his mercy, as the interposition of a gross body doth the Sun, but not put out its light; at the very sight of Misery, Mercy is awake, up, and either doing of suffering. Who is weak, 
2 Cor. 11.29.  and I am not weak? saith Saint Paul; who is offended, and I burn not? If I but see him weak, I faint; and if I see him vexed, I am on fire. Nature is active and will work to its end; heavy bodies will descend, and light bodies will mount upwards; and Mercy will give, and lend, and forgive; it cannot be idle, Inquies opere suo pascitur, 
Livi. pres.  it is restless, and is made more restless by its work, which is indeed its pleasure; It is then most truly Mercy, when it shows itself. If occasion presents itself, it soon lays hold of it; If the object appear, it is carried to it with the speed of a Thought, and reacheth it as soon; If there be no object, it creates one; if there be no occasion, it studies one: Is there yet any left of the house of Saul, that I may show kindness to for Jonathans' sake? And, Is there no Lazar to feed, no Widow to visit, no Wounds to bind up, no weak brother to be restored, none that be in darkness and error to be brought into the light? These are the Quaeres, the true dialect, this is the Ambition of Mercy: It longs more for an occasion to vent itself, than the Adulterer doth for the twilight; lays hold of the least as of a great one; thinks nothing too high, nothing too low, which it can reach; is still in motion, because it moves not like those Artificial bodies by art or outward force, but by a principle of life, the spirit of love; and so moves, not as a clock, which will stand still when the plummet is on the ground, but its motion is Natural, as that of the spheres, which are wheeled about without cessation, and return by those points by which they passed; and indeed, may be said rather to rest then to move, because they move continually, and in the same place. Misery is the point, the object of mercy, and at that it toucheth everlastingly: mercy and misery still go together and eye each other; the eye of misery looks up upon mercy, and the eye of mercy looks down upon misery; they are the two cherubins, that have ever their faces one towards another, and they are both full and ready to drop and run down; the eye of misery is ever open, and mercy hideth not her eye, Prov. 28.27. By this you may judge of your acts of liberality, and look upon them as those sacrifices with which God is pleased, when you find something within you that enlargeth you, that opens your mouth and hand, that you cannot but speak and do; when you find a heat within you that thaws and melts you, that you pour out yourselves on your brethren; then your works of mercy are of a sweet smelling savour, when love sets them on fire.  
For secondly, being made Natural unto us, it will be also constant, it will be fixed in the firmament of the soul, and shine and derive its influence uncessantly, and equally, doing good unto all men, while it hath time, that is at all times. When the heart dissents from itself (for love only unites and makes it one,) when it is divisum cor, a divided heart, divided between God and the world; when it hath inconstant motions, and changeable counsels, when it joins with the object, and leaps from the object; willing to day and loathing to morrow; this day cleaving to it, and even sick for love, (as Ammon was with Tamar) and the next thrusting it out of doors; choosing without judgement, and then altering upon experience; In such a heart mercy cannot dwell; and from hence it is that we see men every day so unlike themselves, now giving, anon oppressing; now reaching out an Alms, and by and by threatening with the sword; now giving their brother the right hand of fellowship, and within a while with that hand plucking him by the throat; now pitying him that lies in the dust, and anon crying out, So, So, Thus we would have it: For indeed their pity and their rage, their mercy and their cruelty have the same original, are raised upon the same ground, the love of themselves, and not of mercy; and thus they do some acts of mercy, magno impetu, sed semel, with much earnestness and zeal, but not often, like some birds whose notes or rather noise we hear one part of the year, and then they leave us, vanish out of sight and hearing, and as some say, sleep out the other. For even in the worst of men there be some seeds of goodness, which they receive as they are men, from whence arise those 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, those sudden but short and transitory inclinations, which are choked up, but not so dead in them, but that sometimes they show themselves and shoot out, but as grass doth upon the housetops, 
Ps. 129.6  which withereth before it groweth up. There is no Tyrant but may do one act of mercy; no oppressor but may give a cup of cold water. In pessimis est aliquid optimi, there may be something of that which is good, even in the worst. Then mercy is in its full glory, when it acts upon a certain and well grounded determination; when we decree, as the Stoics speak, and resolve so to do, when we have fixed this decree, and made it unalterable; when we are rooted and grounded in mercy, as Saint Paul speaks, Eph. 3.17. Rooted as a tree deeply in it, and built as a house upon it, where the corner and chief stone is the love of mercy. Then we are as trees to shadow others, and as an house to shelter them; otherwise our mercy will be but as a gourd, as Jonahs' gourd, and will grow and come up and perish in a night.  
Thirdly, If we love mercy, it will be sincere and real; for sincerity is the proper issue and child of love, and makes the wounds of a friend better than the kisses of an enemy; makes a dish of herbs a more sumptuous Feast then a stalled ox; makes a mite, a good wish, a good word an Alms. What's the mercy of the parasite? he feeds by it. What's the mercy of the Ambitious? a stirrup to get up by. What's the mercy of the Covetous? a piece of art, a warrantable cheat. What was that seeming mercy of Peter? It was an offence, for which Christ called him an enemy. What's the mercy of those, who through Covetousness, with feigned words make a prey of men's souls? 2 Pet. 2.3. I will not tell you, because I cannot give it a name bad enough. There may be mercy in a supply, but that supply may be a snare. There may be mercy in counsel, but that counsel may betray me. There is mercy in comfort, but we know, there be miserable comforters. True mercy must be like our faith, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, 1 Tim. 1.5. unfeigned, and then it runs must pure and clear without taint or trouble, when love opens the fountain, or rather is the fountain from whence it flows; when the love of Christ hath begot in us the love of our brethren, and we show mercy to them, not for those arguments which we make ourselves, or those persuasions which may be the oratory of the flesh and the world; but for Christ's sake, and for the love of mercy, whose rational and demonstrative eloquence we should most obey: otherwise it will begin fairly, and end in blood; It will drop tears, and then hailstones; it will be a but preface of clemency, a mild prologue to lead in a tragedy; an echo out of a sepulchre of rotten bones, and as music at the gates of hell: It will be mercy, but not like unto Christ, in whom there was found no guile, but like unto Martions Christ, all in appearance; mercy with a trumpet in one hand, and a sword in the other; mercy which shall lessen your burden, to lay on more; shall speak of ease, and then add to the misery of the oppressed. For that which is not sincere is not lasting. It may begin to shine, but it will end in a storm: A true face is ever the same, but a vizor will soon fall off. In a word, if it be not sincere, it is not mercy, and sincere it will not, it cannot be, if we love it not.  
Last of all; If we love mercy we shall take delight in it, for joy is but a resultancy from love; that which we love is also the joy of our heart. Behold my servant whom I have chosen, saith God of Christ, Es. 42.1. and then it follows, In whom my soul delights. I have loved thee, saith God, of Israel, and his love thus bespeaks them, as a bridegroom rejoiceth over his bride, so shall thy God rejoice over thee, Is. 62.5. The bridegroom is sick of love in the book of Canticles, his heart is ravished, and then the floodgates are laid open, and the stream is joy. How fair is my love? how much better is thy love then wine, and the smell of thy ointments then all spices? David's heart was knit unto Jonathan, and then, very pleasant hast thou been unto me, 2 Sam. 1.26. Abraham loved hospitality, and therefore he is said to sit in his tent door, in the heat of the day, to invite men in, as if every stranger had been an Angel. If love be as the sun, Joy and delight are the Beams which stream forth from it; If Love be as the Voice, Joy is the Echo, for Joy is but Love in the reflection; If Love fill the heart, it will heave, and work itself out, and break forth in joy. By our joy we may see the figure, and shape, and constitution of our souls; for Love is operative, working and raising up something in the soul, and with it that delight which is born with it, and always waits upon it. If it be dark and scarce observable, our Joy interprets it; Joy is open and talkative; In the wanton 'tis a frolic; in the Revenger it is a Boast; in the Drunkard it is a Ballad; in the Rich it is Pride; in the Ambitious it is a Triumph; but in the Merciful it is Heaven. What a well-drawn picture is to an Apelles, what a fair character is to a Scribe, what a heap of gold is to the Miser, that and much more are the works of Mercy to them that love it; only here the joy is of a purer flame, and burns brighter; that is gross and earthy, this is Seraphical. When you reach forth your hand to give a penny, tell me, what do you feel in your heart? when you give good counsel, do you not hear a pleasing echo return back upon you? when you have lifted up the poor out of the dust, do you not feel an elevation and ascension in your mind? when you cloth the naked, are not you even then super vestiti, clothed upon with joy? Believe it, you cannot give that relief to the miserable, which Mercy works in the soul, nor can he that receives be so much affected as he that gives; For when he gives, he gives indeed his money, but hath bestowed the greatest Alms upon himself; the poor man rejoiceth, as a hungry man that's fed, as a naked man that's clothed, as one that sits in darkness doth at the breaking in of light; but the merciful man hath triumphs and Jubilees within him. In a word, to love Mercy is to be in Heaven, every man according as he purposeth in his heart, let him give not grudgingly, or of necessity, for God loveth a cheerful giver; such a mercy is God's Almoner here on earth, and he loves and blesseth it, follows it with his providence, and his infinite Mercy shall crown it. That gift which the Love of Mercy offereth up, is only fit to be laid up in the Treasury of the Almighty.  
And now I have set before you Mercy in its full beauty, in all its glory; 
Conclusion.  you have seen her spreading her rays: I might show you her building of Hospitals, visiting the sick, giving eyes to the blind, raising of Temples, pitying the stones, breathing forth Oracles, making the ignorant wise, the sorrowful merry, leading the wand'ring man into his way; I might have showed you her sealing of Pardons (but we could not show you all) these are the miracles of Mercy, and they are wrought by the power of Christ in us, and by us, but by his power; the fairest spectacle in the world. Let us then look upon it, and love it: what is mercy when you need it? is it not as the opening of the heavens unto you? and shall it then bea punishment and hell unto you, when your afflicted brethren call for it? Is it so glorious abroad, and shall it be of so foul an aspect, as not to be thought worthy of entertainment at home? shall it be a Jewel in every Cabinet but your own hearts? Behold, and lift up your eyes, and you shall see objects enough for your Mercy to shine on; If ever one depth called upon another, the depth of calamity for the depth of our compassion; if ever our bowels should move and sound, now, now is the time. I remember, that Chrysologus observes, that God did on purpose lay Lazarus at the rich man's Gate, quasi pietatis conflatorium, as a forge to melt his stony heart. Lazarus had as many mouths to speak, and move him to compassion, as he had ulcers and wounds; and how many such forges hath God set before us? how many mouths to beseech us? how many wounds wide open which speak loud for our pity? how many fires to melt us? shall I show you an ulcerous Lazar? They are obvious to our eye, we shall have them always with us, saith our Saviour, and we have them almost in every place: Shall I show you men Stripped and wounded, and left half dead? that may be seen in our lives, as well as in the high ways between Jericho and Jerusalem. Shall I show you the tears drilling down the cheeks of the orphans and widows? shall I call you to hear the cry of the hire kept back by fraud or violence? for that cries to you for compassion, as oppression doth to God for vengeance; and it is a kind of oppression to deny it them. Have you no compassion all ye that pass by, and every day behold such sad spectacles as these? shall I show you Christ put again to open shame, whipped, and scorned, and crucified, and that which cannot be done to him in his person, laid upon his Church? shall I show you him now upon the cross, and have you no regard all you that pass by? shall I show you the Church miserably torn in pieces? shall I show you Religion? I would I could show you such a sight, for scarce so much as her form is left; what can I show, or what can move us, when neither our own misery, nor the common misery, nor sin, nor death, nor hell itself will move us? If we were either good Men, or good Citizens, or good Christians, our hearts would melt and gush forth at our eyes in Rivers of water; If we were truly affected with peace, we should be troubled at war; If we did love the City, we should mourn over it; if we did delight in the prosperity of Israel, her affliction would wound us; if Religion were our care, her decay would be our sorrow; for that which we love and delight in must needs leave a mournful heart behind it, when it withdraws itself. But private interest makes us regardless of the common, and we do not pity Religion because we do not pity our own souls, but drink deep of the pleasures of this world; enlarge our Territories, fill our barns, make haste to be rich, when our soul is ready to be taken from us, and nothing but a rotten mouldering wall, a body of flesh which will soon fall to the ground, between us and hell.  
I may well take off your eye from these sad and woeful spectacles; it had been enough but to have shown you Mercy, for she is a cloud of witnesses, a cloud of Arguments for herself; and if we would but look upon her as we should, there need no other Orator. I beseech you look into your Lease, look into your Covenant, that Conveyance by which bliss and immortality are made over to you, and you shall find that you hold all by this; you hold it from the King of Kings, and your quitrent, your acknowledgement for his great Mercy, is your Mercy to others; pay it down, or you have made a forfeiture of all; if you be Merciless, all that labour (as 'tis called) of charity is lost; your loud profession, your forced gravity, your burning zeal, your faith also is vain, and you are yet in your sins. For what are all these without Mercy but words and names? and there is no name by which we can be saved, but the name of Jesus Christ; and all these, Devotion, Confession, Abstinence, Zeal, Severity of life, are as it were the letters of his name, and I am sure Mercy is one, and of a fair character; and if we expunge and blot it out, it is not his name. Why boast we of our zeal? without mercy it is a consuming fire. 'Tis true, he that is not zealous doth not love; but if my love be counterfeit, what a false fire is my zeal? and one mark of true zeal is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, 
Naz. or. 14.  if it be kept within its bounds, and mercy is the best watch we can set over it to confine and keep it in. The Church of Christ is not placed under the Torrid Zone, that these cooler and more temperate virtues may not dwell there: if you will have your zeal burn kindly, 
Ignis zeli ardere debet oleo misericordiae. Aqu●…. de Erudition princip. l. 1. c. 15, 16.  it must not be set on fire by any earthy matter, but from Heaven, where is the Mercy-seat, and which is the seat of Mercy; if you will be burning lamps, you must pour in oleum misericordiae, the oil of mercy, as Bernard speaks; if this oil fail, you will rather be Beacons than Lamps, to put all round about you in Arms, as we have seen in Germany and other places. Men and Brethren, I may speak to you of the Patriarch David, who is dead and buried; and though we have not his Sepulchre, yet we have the memory of his mercifulness remaining with us to this day; and I ask, Had not he zeal? Yes, and so hot and intensive, that it did consume him, Psal. 119.139. and yet but three verses before, Rivers of water ran down his eyes; and this heat, and this moisture had one and the same cause, because they kept not thy law, in the one; because they forgot thy word, in the other; which is the very same. We much mistake if we do not think there may be a weeping as well as a burning zeal: And indeed zeal is never more amiable, never moves with more Decorum, nay with more advantage both to ourselves and others, then when Mercy sends it running down the cheeks. We cannot better conclude then with that useful advice of GBernard, 
Bern. 46. S. in Cant.  Zelus absque misericordia minùs utilis, plerumque etiam perniciosus, etc. Zeal without mercy is always unprofitable, and most commonly dangerous; and therefore we must pour in this oil of mercy, quae zelum supprimat, spiritum temperet, which may moderate our zeal, and becalm and temper ourspirit, which may otherwise hurry us away to the trouble of others, and ruin of ourselves; which it cannot do, if Mercy be our Assessor.  
To conclude. Let us therefore cast off every weight, let us empty ourselves, fling out all worldly lusts out of our hearts, and make room for mercy; Let us receive it, naturalise it, consubstantiate it, as the Greek Fathers speak, with ourselves, that we may think nothing, breathe nothing, do nothing but mercy; That mercy may be as an Intelligence to keep us in a constant and perpetual motion of doing good; That it may be true and sincere, and sweeter to us then the honey or honeycomb, and so be our Heaven upon Earth whilst we are here, that peace may be upon us, and mercy, even upon all those who love mercy, who are indeed the true Israel of God.  
The last branch is our humble walking with God, and that we shall lay hold on in our next.    

 blazon or royal coat of arms of England and Wales HONI ●…T QVI MAL Y PENSE  
The Six and Twentieth SERMON.  

PART VI.  MICAH 6.8. 
He hath showed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?  
WE have already gathered fruit from two of the Branches of this Tree of Life, This Good which God by his Prophet hath showed us in the Text; we have seen Justice run down as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream as the Prophet speaks: we have seen Mercy dropping as the dew on the tender herbs, and rain upon the grass. We have beheld Justice filling the hand, and Mercy opening it; Justice fitting and preparing the hand to give, and Mercy stretching it forth to cloth the naked, and fill the hungry with good things; Justice gathering, and Mercy scattering; Justice bringing in the seed, and Mercy sowing it; in a word, Justice making it ours, and Mercy alienating it, and making it his, whosoever he be that wants it.  
We must now lay hold on the third, which shadows both the rest from those blasts which may whither them; Those storms and temptations which may shake and bruise them: from Covetousness, Ambition, Pride, Self-love, Self-deceit, Hypocrisy, which turn Justice into gall and wormwood, and eat out the very bowels of Mercy. For our reverend and humble deportment with God is the mother of all good counsel, the guard and defence of all holy duties and the mistress of innocency: By this the Just and Merciful man lives, and moves, and hath his being; his whole life is an humble deportment with God; every motion of his is humility; I may say, his very essence is humility; for he gathers not, he scatters not, but as in his eye and sight. When he fills his garners, and when he empties them, he doth it as under that all-seeing eye, which sees not only what he doth, but what he thinks. In this the Christian moves, & walks with or before his God not opening his eyes, but to see the wonders of his Laws; not opening his mouth, but in Hallelujahs; not opening his ears, but to his voice; not opening his hand, but in his name; not giving his Alms, but as in the presence of his Father, which seethe in secret, and so doing what he requires, with fear and trembling. This spreads and diffuseth itself through every vein and branch, through every part and duty of his life. When he sits in judgement, humility gives the sentence; when he trafficks, humility makes the bargain; when he casts his bread upon the waters, his hand is guided by humility; when he bows and falls down before his God, humility conceives the prayer; when he fasts, humility is in Capite jejunii, and gins the fast; when he exhorts, humility breathes it forth; when he instructs, humility dictates; when he corrects, humility makes the rod: whatsoever he doth, he does as before, or under, or with the Lord: humility is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, all in all. In a word; Singularum virtutum proprii actus, say the Schools; virtues both moral and Theological, like the celestial Orbs, have their peculiar motion proceeding from their distinct Habits and Forms; but humility is the intelligence which keeps and perpetuates that motion, as those orbs are said to have their motion held up and regulated by some assistant form without.  
And now, being here required to walk humbly with our God, It will not be impertinent to give you the picture of humility in little, to show you 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, summarily and in brief what it is, and so we may better see in what this our walking humbly consists. And indeed we look upon humility as we do upon a picture, mirantur omnes divinam formam, sed ut simulachrum fabre politum mirantur omnes, as Apuleius speaks of his Psyche. Every man doth much admire it as a beautiful piece, but it is as men admire a well-wrought statue, or picture; every man likes it, but (which was the lot of his Psyche) no man loves it, no man woos it, no man desires to take her to his wife.  
Yet it will not be amiss to give you a short view of her. And the Orator will tell us, Virtutis laus omnis in actione consistit, Every virtue is commended by its proper act and operation, and is then actually, when it works; Temperance doth bind the appetite; liberality open the hand; modesty compose the countenance; valour guard the heart, and work out its contrary out of the mind; and Humility every thing that riseth up; every swelling and tumour of the soul, which are called by the Apostle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, 2 Cor. 12.20. puffings up, for riches, or learning, or beauty, or strength, or eloquence, or virtue, or any thing which we admire ourselves for; elations and lifting up of the mind above itself, the stretching of it beyond its measure, 2 Cor. 10.14. setting it up against the Law, against our brethren, against God himself; making us to complain of the Law, as unjust; to start at the shadow of an injury; to do evil, and not to see it; to commit sin, and excuse it; making our tongues our own, our hands our own, our understandings our own, our wills our own; leaving us independents, under no Law but our own: The Prophet David calls it the highness or haughtiness of the heart, Ps. 131. Solomon, the haughtiness of the spirit, Prov. 16.18. which is visible in our sin, and visible in our Aplogies for sin; lifting up the eyes, and lifting up the nose (for so the phrase signifies) Ps. 10.4. lifting up the head, making our necks brass, as if we had devoured a spit, as Epictetus expresses it; I am and I alone, 
Graeci 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 appellant. Arrian. Epict.  is soon writ in any man's heart; and it is the office and work of humility to wipe it out, to wipe out all imaginations which rise and swell against the Law, our neighbour, and so against God himself. For the mind of man is very subject to these fits of swelling; humility? our very nature riseth at the mention of it. Habet mens nostra sublime quiddam, & impatiens superioris, saith the Orator; men's minds naturally are lifted up, and cannot endure to be overlookt. Humility? 'Tis well we can hear her named with patience; it is something more, that we can commend her: but, quale monstrum? quale sacrilegium? saith the Father; O monstrous sacrilege! we commend humility, and that we do so, swells us; we shut her out of doors, when we entertain her; when we deck her with praises, we sacrilegiously spoil her, and even lose her in our Panegyrics and commendations. We see (for it is but too visible) what light materials we are made of, what tinder we are, that the least spark will set us on fire, to blaze and be offensive to every eye. We censure pride in others, and are proud we do so; we humble our brethren, and exalt ourselves. It is the art and malice of the world, when men excel either in virtue or learning, to say, they are proud, and they think weith that breath to level every hill that riseth so high, and calls so many eyes to look upon it: But suppose they were; alas, a very fool will be so, and he that hath not one good part to gain the opinion of men, will do that office for himself, and wonder the world should so mistake him. Doth learning, or virtue, do our good parts puff us up, and set us in our Altitudes? No great matter, the wagging of a feather, the gingling of a spur, a little ceruse and paint, any thing, nothing will do it. Nay, to descend yet lower, That which is worse than nothing will do it; wickedness will do it: He boasteth of his hearts desire, saith David, Ps. 10.3. he blesseth himself in evil; he rejoiceth in evil, saith Solomon, Prov. 2.14. he pleaseth and flattereth himself in mischif: And what are these benedictions, these boastings, these triumphs in evil, but as the breathe, the sparkles, the proclamations of pride? The wicked is so proud, he careth not for God, he is not in all his ways. When Adam by pride was risen so high as to fall from his obedience, God looks upon him in this his exaltation, or rather in this ruin, and beholds him not as his creature, but as a prodigy, and seems to put on admiration; Ecce! Adam factus tanquam unus è nobis; See, the man is become like unto us, and he speaks it by an Irony. A God he is, but of his own making; whilst he was what I made him, he was a man, but Innocent, Just, immortal, of singular endowments, and he was so truly and really; but now having swelled, and reached beyond his bounds, a God he is, but per mycterismum, a God that may be pitied, that may be derided, a mortal, dying God, a God that will run into a thicket to hid himself: His greatness is but figurative, but his misery is real; being turned out of Paradise, hath nothing left but his fancy to Deify him. This is our case, and our Teeth are on edge with the same sour grapes: we are proud, and sin, and are proud in our sins: we lift up ourselves against the Law, and when we have broke it, we lift up ourselves against repentance: when we are weak, than we are strong; when we are poor and miserable, than we are rich; when we are naked, than we cloth ourselves with pride as with a garment; and as in Adam, so in us, our greatness is but a tale, a pleasing lie, our sins and imperfections true and real; our Heaven but a thought, and our hell, burning: a strange solecism; a look as high as heaven, and the soul as low as the lowest pit. It was an usual speech with Martin Luther, That every man was born with a Pope in his belly; & we know what the Pope hath long challenged and appropriated to himself, Infallibility & Supremacy, which like the two sides of an Arch mutually uphold each other: for do we question his Immunity from Error? it is a bold error in us; for he is supreme Judge of Controversies. And the Conjecture is easy which way the question will be stated. Can we not be persuaded and yield to his supremacy? then his Parasites will tell you that he is Infallible; by this we may well guess what Luther meant; for so it is in us, Pride makes us incorrigible, and the thought that we are so increaseth our pride: we are too high to stand, and too wise to be wary; too learned to be taught, and too good to be reproved: we now stand upon our supremacy, see, how the worm swells into an Angel: The heart forgets it is flesh, and becomes a stone; and you cannot set Christ's Impress, Humility, upon a stone. Learn of me, for I am humble; The ear is deaf, and the heart stubborn; the mind 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, saith Saint Paul; 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, saith Theodoret, a reprobate, reverberating mind, a heart of marble, which violently beats back the blow that should soften it.  
Now the office of humility is to abate this swelling; It's proper work is to hammer this rock, and break it to pieces, Jer. 23.29. to drive it into itself, to pull it down at the sight of this Lord, to place it under itself, under the Law, under God; to bind it as it were with cords, and let out this corrupt blood, and this noxious humour, and so sacrifice it to that God that framed it. In a word, depressing it in itself, that it be not too wise, too full; That it may behold itself of more value than the whole world, and then shut itself up, that it wander not abroad after those vanities which will soon fill it with air, and swell it. This is the method, and this is the work of humility; It pulls out our eyes, that we may see; spoils us of our wealth, that we may be rich; takes us out the rays, that we may have light; takes us from ourselves, that we may possess ourselves; bids us departed from God, that we may enjoy him. This is Janitrix scholae Christi, faith Bernard; for when we bow, and lie prostrate, we are let in. This is as Saint John Baptist to prepare the way, to make every mountain low, and the rough places plain; to depress a lofty head, and sink a haughty eye, and beat down a swelling heart. In a word, this is the best Leveller in the world, and there need none but this.  
We see then in what humility consists; in placing us where we should be, at the footstool of God, admiring his majesty, and abhorring themselves, distrusting ourselves, and relying on his wisdom, bowing to him when he helps us, and bowing to him when he strikes us; denying ourselves, surrendering ourselves, being nothing in ourselves, and all things in him. Which will more plainly appear in the extent of this duty, which reacheth the whole man, both body and soul. It was the speech of Saint Austin, Domine duo creasti, alterum propete, alterum prope nihil, Lord thou hast made two things in the world, one near unto thyself, divine and celestial, the soul; the other vile and sordid, next to nothing, the body. These are the parts which constitute and make us men, the subject of sin, and therefore of humility. Let not sin reign in your mortal bodies, Rom. 6.12. but let humility depose, and pluck it from its throne: Ind delinquit homo unde constat, saith Tertullian, from thence sin is, from whence we are; 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, saith Nazianzen, with ourselves we fight against ourselves; we carry about with us those forces which beset us; we are that Army which is in battle array against us; 
— videas concurrere Bellum  
Atque virum—  Our enemies are domestic, at home within us; and a tumult must be laid where first 'twas raised. Between them both, saith the same Father, 
Naz. orat. 8.  there is a kind of warlike opposition, and they do 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, as it were pitch their Tents one against the other; when the body prevails, the soul is lost; and when the body is at the lowest, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, then is the soul is high as heaven; and when the soul is sick, even bedrid with sin, than the body is most active, as a wild Ass, or wanton Heifer. In both there is matter for humility to work on; 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Hesyc.  In both there are excrescences and extuberations to be lopped off and abated; the body must he used as an enemy, (〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, saith Saint Paul, I buffet it, I beat it black and blue, I handle it as a Rebel, or professed enemy; and it must be used as a servant; 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, I hold it in subjection, like a captive, like a slave after conquest.) And the soul to be checked, contracted, and depressed in itself, ne in multa diffluat, that it spread not, nor diffuse itself on variety of objects: It must not be dimidiata humilitas, an humility by halves, but Holocaustum, a whole burnt-offering, both body and soul wasting and consuming all their dross in this Holy Conflagration. I know not how, good duties are either shrunk up in the conveyance, not driven home by the Masters of the Assembly, or else taken into pieces in the performance. Doth God proclaim a Fast? See, the head hangs down, the look is changed; you may read a Famine in the countenance, and yet the Fast not kept: Walk humbly with him? So we will; he shall have our knee, our look; he shall see us prostrate on the ground, say some, who are as proud on the ground as when they stood up. He shall have the heart, no knee of ours, say others, as proud as they. If we can conceive an Humiliation, and draw forth its picture but in our fancy; nay if we can but say, It is good to be humbled, it is enough, though it be a lie, and we speak not what we think. We are most humble when we least express it, so full of contradictions is Hypocrisy, (and what a huge 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and gulf is there between Hypocrisy and Humility?) so reaching at Impossibilities, which may draw Pride and Humility together to be one and the same, which yet are at greater distance one from the other, than the Earth is from the Heaven. And thus we divide Humility, nay thus we divide ourselves from ourselves, our souls from our bodies; either our Humility is so spiritual that we cannot see it, neither dropping at the eyes, nor changing the countenance, nor bowing the knees; nor hear it in complaints, and groans, and roar, which were wont to be the language of humility; or so corporeal, that we see it all. God hath his part, and but a part, and so hath none; and then the conjecture is easy, who hath it all.  
But ourselves include both; neither is my Body myself, nor my Soul myself, but I am one made up of both, the knot that ties them both together; and my Humility lasts no longer than whilst I am one of both. Whilst then we are so, let us give him both, and first the Soul. For there is no vice so dangerous, or to which we are more subject, then spiritual pride. Other vices proceed from some defect in us, or some sinful imbecility of nature, but this many times ariseth out of our good parts; Others fly from the presence of God, this dares him to his face, and makes even Ruin itself the Foundation of its Tabernacle. Intestinum malum periculosius, The more near the evil cleaves to the soul, the more dangerous it is; the more inward, the more fatal. I may wean myself from the world, and fling off vanity; I may take off my soul from sensible objects; I may deny my appetite, I may shut up my eye, I may bind my hands; I may study pleasure so long, till I truly understand it, and know it is but madness; and the world, till I contemn it; but Pride ultima exuitur, is the last garment which we put off; when we are naked, we can keep her on; and when we can be nothing we can be proud. And therefore some have conceived humility to be placed in the soul as a Canopy covering and shadowing both the faculties, binding and moderating the understanding, and subduing the will; and whilst they sit under humility, they sit in state; the understanding is crowned with rays and light, and the will commands just things, as from its Throne; never employs the eye or hand in any office for which the one should be plucked out, and the other cut off, but are both in their highest exaltation, being both now under the will of God. Our understanding many times walks in things too high for it, yet thinks she is above them; and our will inclines (and that too oft) to things forbidden, because they are so; cannot endure the check and restraint of a command, which it breaks under that name; the two greatest evils under the Sun, we are too wise, and we are too wilful. Now the pride of our will is quickly seen, and therefore the more curable; It shows itself in the wild irregular motions of the outward man; If lifts up the hand, it moves the tongue, it rowles the eye, it paints itself upon the very countenance, either in smiles or frowns, either in cheerfulness or terror; It is visible in each motion, and there be Laws to check and curb it, that it may not be so troublesome and destructive as otherwise it would be; but quae latent nocent, The serpent at the heel, an overweening conceit of our own knowledge, of our own perfections, how invisible doth it enter us? how deceitfully doth it flatter us? how subtly ensnare us? Benè sapimus in causa nostra, we are wise in our own cause; we have digged deep and found the truth, which others do but talk of; we cannot be deceived, and the thought that we cannot be deceived, doth deceive us most. Now we are rich, now we are learned, now we are wise, now we reign as kings, and carry all before us; we control the weak with our power; the ignorant with our knowledge; the poor with our wealth; the simple with our wisdom; and confute ourselves with our own arguments, and are poor, because we are so rich; are deceived, because we are so wise; can do little, because we can do so much; and manifest our folly unto all men, because we are so wise. For whither will this high conceit of ourselves lift us? even above ourselves, besides ourselves, against ourselves: for wheresoever we stand, we stand a contradiction to ourselves and others, and are as far from what we would set up, as they are, who would set up something else which is nothing like it. We conceive the world is shaken and out of order, and we put forth our hand to bear up the pillars of it. We form Commonwealths, we square out one by another, and know the dimensions of neither. We model Churches, draw out their Government, that is, make a coat for the moon: we make a Church, and cloth it with our fancy; fit it with a government, as with a garment, which will never be put on; or if it be, The next power may pluck it off, and leave it naked, leave it nothing, or put on some other which may be worn with more honour and safety to that power, which put it on. This is visible and open to the eye, and that eye is but weak and dull which doth not see and observe it; why should then our pride and self-conceit thus walk as in shadow, as in a dream? why should we thus disquiet ourselves in vain, and busy ourselves, and trouble others, to build up that to which we can contribute no more, than a poor, feeble wish, which hath not power enough to raise it to that desired height in which we would have it seen, but will leave it where it was first set up (an useless unregarded thing) in our brain and imagination? Christ and his Apostles did not leave the Church naked, but fitted her with a garment, which she wore for many ages; in which there were scarce any that did stand up and say, It did not become her; and if we do not now like the fashion, but sit down and invent another, we do but teach and prompt others to do the like; and so we shall have many more, and none at all, be ever choosing, ever changing, even to the end of the world. This is it which hath divided Christians, which have but one name, and given them so many, that it will cost us labour and study but to number them: This rends the Church with Schism; for men that will not be confined, are ever ask how they should be governed; and they are busiest to question the present form of discipline, who would have none: and if you observe the behaviour of the Schismatic, you may behold him walk, as if he had the Urim and Thummim on his breast, the breastplate of judgement ever with him, for by a thought (which is but a look of the mind) he discovers, and determines all things; so dangerous is this spiritual pride both to ourselves and others. Nor is the high conceit of our own perfections and holiness less dangerous, but most fatal to ourselves; For that heaven which we draw out in our fancy, hath no more light and joy in it, than the region of darkness; only what is wanting in reality, we supply with thought; but to no more purpose than that soldier, who having no other pillow to lay his head on but his head-piece, that he might make it more easy, filled it with chaff. We think ourselves to be something, as the Apostle speaks, Gal. 6. and we are nothing, and are deceived; pride is but a thought, and pride is folly; now we are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, more regular than the rule, more exact than the Law, 
Nazian.  more bright than light, above the command; not to believe us is infidelity; not to obey us is a kind of rebellion; not to admire us is profaneness; not to join with us is schism; not to subscribe to what we say, is heresy. We are, and we alone; we are as he that lieth on the top of the mast, and we sleep, and dream out the tempest; we may be Adulterers, Murderers, Traitors, and the Favourites of God; we may be men after Gods own heart, and yet do what his soul hateth: All our sins are venial, though never so great; our sins do not hurt, but rather advantage us; the greatest evil that is in us will turn to our good; for our faith is steadfast, our hope lively, and our Election sure; and to this height our imagination hath raised us, and from this we fall, and are lost for ever.  
And therefore it will concern us to captivate both, both our understanding and our will; not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, not to be over-wise, not to be wise in our own conceits, Rom. 12.16. not to be such Gnostics, not to seem to know what we do not; nay sometimes not to seem to know what we do know; and this will defend us from Error, and our Brethren from offence: and then to subdue our will to our reason and the rule, to subject our will against our natural desire and inclination to the will of God; ad nutum ejus nutu citiùs obedire, to obey every beck of his as soon as the beck is given, in the twinkling of an eye, without deliberation or demur. In a word, not to do what thou wouldst, but to obey in what thou wouldst not, and which the flesh shrinks from, which is the crown and perfection of Obedience, put on by the hand of Humility.  
And this is the Humility of the Soul: But is this enough? No, 
Psal. 40. Tertull. de Pallio.  Corpus aptâ sti mihi, A body hast thou prepared me. God sees thy Body as well as thy Soul, and will have the knee, the tongue, the eye, the countenance, Auditur Philosophus dum videtur; the Philosopher, and so the Christian, is heard when he is seen. Thou art to walk with him, or before him. Come, saith David, Let us worship and fall down, and kneel before the Lord our Maker. Then you may best take Humilitie's picture, when the Body is on the ground; you may mark her how she bows it down, watch her in a tear, take hold of her in a look, follow her in all her postures, till she faint, and droop, and lie down in dust and ashes. Oh beloved, the time was when men did so walk, as if God had been visible and before them; The time was when Humility was thought a virtue; when Humility came forth in this dress, multo deformata pulvere, with ashes sprinkled on her head, her garments rend, like a Penitentiary: You might have beheld her kissing the chains of imprisoned Martyrs, washing the feet of Lazars, wallowing at the Temple doors, begging the prayers of the Saints; you might have seen her rent, and torn, stripped and naked, the hair neglected, the eye hollow, the body withered, the feet bare, and the knees of horn, as Nazianzen describes it in his 12. Oration. Then we humility not sunk into the soul, but written and engraven in the body in Capital letters, that you might have run and read it. But, I know not how the Face of Christendom is much altered, and humility grown stately, hath bracelets on her Arms, and rich Diamonds on her Head: we have fed her daintily, and set her upon her feet. Walk humbly; that we can without hat or knee, with a merry and lofty countenance, with a face set by our Ambition, and even speaking our Pride and Scorn; and we appear in the service of God, as in a thing below us and which we Honour with our Presence: Humility with an Humble look, a bowed knee, a Bare Head, a Composed Countenance? away with it, It is Idolatry and Superstition. But let us not deceive ourselves; God hates the visor of humility, but not her face; If she borrow from art and the pencil, she is deformed, but appearing in her own likeness, in that dress; which God himself hath put her in, she is lovely, and shines upon those duties in which we are employed, and makes them so delightful to behold. 'Tis true, the thought may knock at heaven, when the body is on the ground; and when that's shut up between two walls, may measure out a Kingdom; and the whole world may be too narrow for an Anchoret: but it is as true, That humility never seized on the mind, but it draws the body after it; If I lose my friend, my look will tell you he is gone. If a robber spoil all that I have, there is a kind of devastation of the countenance, but a wounded spirit who can bear? If thy soul be truly humble, thy bones will consume, and thy marrow waste, as David speaks, Thy eye wax old, and thou wilt forget to eat thy bread; thou wilt go heavily all the day long. Think what we will, pretend what we can, flatter ourselves as we please, I shall assoon believe him chaste, whose eyes are full of Adulteries, or who will sell a copyhold to buy Aretine's pictures; I shall as soon think him modest, whose mouth is an open sepulchre; him charitable, who will sooner eat up twenty poor men, then feed one, as that man devote and humble in his heart, who is so bold and irreverent in his outward gesture.  
I cannot but look upon it as upon an impossibility, to draw these two together, a neglectful deportment, and humility; for I cannot imagine, nor can any man give me a reason, why every. Passion, nay, why every vice should show itself in the outward man, totâ corpulentiâ, as the Father speaks, in its full proportion and dimensions; That Anger should shake the lips, and set the teeth, and die the face sometimes with white sometimes with red; that sorrow should make men put on sackcloth, rend their garments, beat their heads against the walls, as Augustus did for the defeat and loss of Varus; that even dissimulation itself should betray itself by the winking of the eye, Prov. 10.10. That every vice and virtue should one way or other open itself, and even speak to the eye, only Devotion and Humility should sink in, and withdraw itself, lurk and lie hid in the inward man, as if it were ashamed to show its head; that we should be afraid, to kneel, afraid, to be reverend; that it should be a sin to kneel, a sin to be humble; that to come and fall down, or bow, though it be in the house of God, is to worship Dagon. Reason and Religion help us, and destroy every Altar, and break down every image, and burn it with fire, and chase and banish all superstition from the face of the earth. And let all the people say Amen. But, God forbidden, that reverence, and those motions and expressions of humility which are the works and language of the heart, should be swept out together with the rubbish; that the wind which drives out superstition, should leave an open way for Profaneness and Atheism to enter in. And let all the people say Amen to that too. For if we do not present our bodies as well as our souls a living sacrifice, glorifying God in every motion of it, as as we do in every conception of our mind, Rom. 12.1. Our service cannot be a reasonable service of him, and the same tempest may drive down before it religion and reason both. S. Paul hath joined them both together as in the purchase, so also in the obligation, 1 Cor. 6.20. Ye are bought with a price, This is the Antecedent; and than it follows necessarily, therefore glorify God in your bodies and your spirits, which are Gods.  
But this may seem too general; yet if we know what humility is, we shall the better see how to walk humbly with our God; but we will draw it nearer, and be more particular. And indeed, to walk humbly with our God, and to walk before him, Gen. 17.1. to walk in his statutes, Psal. 119.1. to walk in the light of the Lord, Is. 2.5. to walk as in his sight, differ not in signification, nor present unto our understandings divers things. For all speak but this, to walk as in his presence, to walk as if he were a near spectator, as if he were visible before us, not to shroud and mantle ourselves, not to run into the thicket, as if there he could not see us; but so to behave ourselves, as if he were a slander by, an eyewitness of all our Actions; to curb our fancy, keep our tongue, be afraid of every Action, upon this certain persuasion, That God is at hand. For as God is Emanuel, God with us, when he blesseth us and doth us good, so do we walk with God when we bless him, and do our duties. As I was with Moses, so will I be with thee, saith God to Joshuah, Joshuah. 5. Then God is with us when he strengtheneth our hands, when he shadows us under his wing, when he poureth forth his graces upon us; and then we walk with him when we bow before him, use all the faculties of our souls, and move every member of our bodies as his, and as in his sight; when we devote ourselves to him alone; when our eye looks upon him as the eye of the handmaid on the eye of her mistress, and by a strict and sincere obedience we follow him in all those ways which he hath appointed for us.  
This I take to be the meaning of the words; we shall draw all within the compass of these considerations; first, That God hath an all-seeing eye, That he sees all ad Nudum, as the Schools speak, naked as they are, surveys our Actions, hears our words, and searcheth the very inwards of the heart: secondly, That truly to believe this is the best preservative of the other two; the best means to establish Justice, and uphold Mercy in us; to keep us in an even and unerring course of obedience: for will any man offend his God in his very eye? And in the third place, we shall discover and point out those who do not thus walk with God, but walk in the haughtiness, and deceitfulness of their hearts, as if God had neither eye to see, nor ear to hear, nor hand to punish them, that we may mark and avoid them; and this shall serve for use and application. What doth God require?  
— to walk humbly with thy God.  
And first, That we may walk humbly with our God, this must be laid as a foundation to build upon, as the primum movens, as the which first sets us a walking, and puts us into this careful and humble posture, That God is present every where, and seethe and knoweth all things. And here we must not make too curious and bold a disquisition concerning the manner how God is present every where, and how he seethe all things; It is enough for us to believe he doth so, and not to seek to know that which he never told us, and which indeed he cannot tell us, because we cannot apprehend it: for how can we receive that knowledge, of which we are not capable? we read, That he filleth the earth and the heaven, Jer. 23.24. That heaven is his Throne, and the earth his footstool, Is. 66.1. That he is higher than heaven, and deeper than hell, and longer than the earth, and broader than the sea, Job 11.7,8,9. That he is not far from every one of us, That in him we live, and move, and have our being. Acts 17.27,28. That his understanding is infinite, Psal. 147.5. That there is no creature which is not manifest in his sight; that all things are naked to him, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, open as the entrails of a beast cut down in the back, for sacrifice, Heb. 4.13. That he looks down from heaven on the children of men. Psal. 142. That his eyes are open upon all their ways; That neither they, nor their Imquity are hid from his face; & hoc satis est dixisse Deo— and this is enough for God to tell us, and this is enough for us to know. I dare be bold to say, saith Saint Augustine, Forsitan nec ipse Johannes dicit de Deo, ut est, Saint John was as an eagle, and flew aloft, to a higher pitch than the rest, but could not soar so high as to bring us down a full relation, and tell us what God is. This is a message which no man can bring, nor no man can hear. He was a man inspired from God himself; if he had not been inspired, he could have said but little, and being a man, he could say no more. They that walk in valleys and in low places, see not much more ground than they tread; they that are in deep wells, see only that part of the world which is over their heads; but he that is on the top of some exceeding high mountain, sees all the level, even the whole country which is about him: So it stands betwixt us mortals and our incomprehensible God; we that live in this world, are confined as it were into a valley or pit, we see no more than the bounds which are set us will give us leave; and that which our scant, and narrow wisdom, and providence foresees, when the eye thereof is clearest, is full of uncertainty, as depending upon causes which may not work, or if they do, by the intervening of some cross accident, may fail. But God, who is that supreme and sublime light, and by reason of his wonderful nature so high exalted, as from some exceeding high mountain sees all men at once, all Actions, all Casualties present and to come, and with one cast of his eye measures them all. This we are told, and 'tis enough for us that God hath told us so much; that he is in heaven, and yet not confined to that place; that he is every where, though we do not know how; that he sees all things, knows all things; that he is Just, and wise, and Omnipotent: and here we may walk with safety, for the ground is firm under us; upon this we may build up ourselves in our Holy Faith; upon this we may build up our Love, which always eyes him; our honour to him, which ever bows before him; our patience, which bears every burden, as if we saw him laying it on; our fear, to which every place is as mount Sinai, where it trembles before him; our hope, which lays hold on him, as if he were present in all the hardship we undergo; our obedience, which always works as in his eye; to venture further, is to venture as Peter did upon the Sea, where we are sure to sink; nor will Christ reach out his hand to help us, but we shall be swallowed up in that depth which hath no bottom, and be lost in that which is past finding out; for this is the just punishment of our bold, and too forward curiosity; It works on busily, and presseth forward with great earnestness to see itself defeated; loseth that which it might grasp, and findeth nothing.  
It is enough for us to see the back parts of God, that is, as much as he is pleased to show us; and the want of this moderation hath occasioned many gross errors in the Church of Christ (for what can curiosity bring forth but monsters?) The Anomaei thought God as comprehensible as themselves (and indeed, upon a slender stock of knowledge we grow wanton, and talk of God as we do of one another) and no marvel, that they who know not themselves should be so ignorant of God, as to think to comprehend him. Against these Saint Chrysostom wrote. The Manichees confined him to a place, and these Saint Austin confutes. Others took upon them to qualify and reform this speech, God is in every place, by changing the preposition In into Cum, God is with every place. Others conclude that the essence of God is most properly in heaven; others have shut him up there, and excluded his presence from this lower world. The heaven, they will tell you, is his Throne, but then is not the earth also his footstool; why may he not then be in earth, as well as in heaven? For the Argument is the very same; nor must we conceive of God as we do of great Potentates, whom we do not entertain in a Cottage, but in a Palace; nor can his Majesty gather soil by intermingling itself with the things of the earth (a most carnal conceit) for the very Poet will tell us, Tangere & tangi nisi corpus nulla potest res. That nothing but a body can be touched, much less defiled. We cannot think the Angel impaired his beauty by being in prison with Peter, or in the den with Daniel, unless we will say he was scorched in the furnace, when the three men did not so much as smell of the fire. The heavens themselves are unclean in his sight, saith Job, c. 15. yet he remains, saith the Father, pure 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, in a most wonderful exuberance, beyond all Hyperbole; No pitch can defile him, no sin pollute him; No deformity on earth can sully his beauty. Our cursed oaths do even blast his name, yet his name is the same, the Holy of Holyes; his eyes beheld us weltering in our blood, yet they are ten thousand times brighter than the sun; and therefore he is truly called Actus primus, an act or essence, as free from contagion, as composition. We take perfection from, him he receives no imperfection from us; he sits in heaven, yet his Majesty is not increased; he walks on the earth, yet his Majesty is not diminished; he rides on the wings of the wind, yet his Majesty and glory is still the same. He is in darkness, makes darkness a Pavilion round about him, yet is light itself; he is in our corrupt hearts, yet is purity itself. Nusquam est, & ubique est, he is no where, because no place can contain him; he is every where, because no body, no place, no substance whatsoever can exclude him. And as he is present with us, and about our paths, so he sees and knows every motion and action of ours. Our inclinations, our thoughts, when they are risen, whilst they were arising, before there was either object or opportunity to raise them, or any temptation to draw them up. He sees our habits, our vices and virtues, before we ventured on that action which did lead the way and begin them; I know him, saith God of Abraham, Gen. 18.19. and that he will do Justice and Judgement. He knows our dispositions. And found some good thing in Jeroboams child, 1 Kings 14.13. He sees all our actions long before they are done; our thoughts, before they are conceived; our deliberations, before we ask counsel; and our counsels, before they are fixed. Of what large extent were many of the prophecies? how many years? how many cross actions? how many contingencies? what numberless swarms of thoughts inconsistent, and not understood, and yet concurrent and introductory to that which was foretold, came between the prophecy and the fullfilling of it? yet God saw through all these, and saw all these, and how they were working to that end, of which he was pleased to give the prophets a sight. The prophet Daniel foretells the succession of the Monarchies, the division of Alexander's kingdoms, the ruin of the Jews, and that so plainly, that Prophyry, a great enemy to the Christians, to disgrace and put it off, said, That it was a discourse much like Lycophrons' Cassandra, written after the things were done, and so published to caiol and deceive the people, who are soon pleased, & so, soon taken with a cheat. Malè nôrunt Deum, qui non putant illum posse quod non putant, 
Tert. de Resurr. Carn. c. 38.  saith Tertullian, They have but little knowledge of God, who do not think that he can do, yea and doth know and see what they cannot think. For he that made the eye, shall not he see? He that teacheth man knowledge, shall not he know? Psal. 94.9,10. He that fashioneth the heart, shall not he consider all our works? Psal. 33.15. He sees us when we fall down before him, he sees us when we harden our faces; and he sees us in our tears, and he sees us in our blood, and yet he remains yesterday, and to day, and the same for ever. For as it is an argument of his infinite perfection to understand all things, so is it of his Judiciary and infinite power to see, and know, and observe those motions, those offers, those inclinations which are against his Law, and by which we are said to fight against him. I may know Adultery, and yet be chaste; I may see malice and debate in the City, and yet be peaceable; I may hear blasphemy, and yet tremble at God's name: For sin doth not pollute as it is in the understanding, but in the will; not as it is known, but as it is embraced; and not by any physical, but a moral contagion, which first infects the will alone. If the bare knowledge of evil could pollute, than he that makes himself an Eunuch for the kingdom of heaven, may be an Adulterer, and the Judge that sits to condemn the sin, may be a Parricide.  
God then may be present every where, and this is the poorest exception that can be made against it. I have waved, you see, that more subtle and intricate disputes, (and there be too many, for men are never weary of doing nothing) that which hath been spoken is as plain as necessary, and no man can take it as a thing out of his sphere and reach. Let us pass to that which we proposed in the second place, and for which we proposed this of the Omnipresence and Omniscience of God. For the consideration of this is the best preservative of Mercy, and Pillar to uphold Justice; Septum Legis, a fence, a hedge set about the Law, that no unclean beast be so bold to break in, and come so near as to touch it. The Prophet David makes this use of it, Psal. 139.7. Quò ibo à spiritu? whither shall I go from thy spirit, or whither shall I fly from thy presence? If I go into heaven, thou art there; If I make my bed in hell, behold thou art there; If I take the wings of the morning, and fly to the uttermost parts of the Sea, even there shalt thou find me out. Now nothing can be more forcible to make us walk reverently and humbly with our God, than a firm persuasion that God walks with us that he sees and observes us, that whatever we do or think lies open to the view and survey of that all-seeing eye. For secrecy is the nurse of sin; that is done often which is done without witness, and done with more delight, in a kind of pride and triumph, where there is the least fear of discovery. They that are drunk are drunk in the night, and the twilight is the Adulterers season: 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, said Pindarus. 
Clem. Paedag. 3.  Drunkenness, Uncleanness, Revelling, are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, saith Nazianzen, are the thefts of the night, by which we would steal and convey our sin from the Sun and the people. 
Naz. or. 40.  And Clemens observes it of the Gnostics, That they profess themselves to be the Sons of God, 
Clem. Strom. 3.  but as the Sons of God did not love the light, but polluted themselves, and took their pleasure, not as Kings, but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, as slaves in secret, for fear of the whip. Look upon the Politicians of the world, and see how they work under ground, as it were in vaults and caves; how they look one way and work another; what a stream of light ushers in a work of darkness; what a goodly preface we have to a flying book of curses; what a fair frontispiece to a Beth-aven, a house of vanity; and then when their lust, which conceived with so much art and concealment, hath brought forth that sin with which they were so long in labour, they will not own it under that name, but father it upon something else which was scarce thought on till then, and is more different from it in kind, than a man is from a Lion. So they hid it that it may be done, and when 'tis done they hid it; a child of darkness it was in the conception, and now 'tis brought forth, it is a child of darkness. For the most part, we bid defiance to sin in public, and meet and join with it in the dark; though we venture not in the day, but stand out, yet if it will give us a visit in the twilight, we are willing to yield: 
Apuleius.  Quod nemo novit penè non fit, what no man knows is as if it were not done at all; and such is our folly and madness, to think to make ourselves as invisible as God, and that he sees not us because we see not him, as Tully spoke of some Philosophers, quia animo videre non poterant, omnia ad oculos referebant, when they saw so little with their intellectual eye, they referred all to their sense, and would believe nothing but what they had an ocular demonstration for. 
See Ser. 14.  And we because the eye of our faith is dull and heavy, and near put out, and do not discern that eye which is ten thousand times brighter than the Sun, think there is no other eye but that of flesh, which if we can lie hid from, we are Securi adversus Deos hominesque, we are secure and safe not only from men but from God himself; so different and contrary is our behaviour when we break, to that which we put on when we keep the Law. When we have given an Alms, we take a trumpet; when we fast, our countenance must proclaim it, and though we lie on the ground, yet are we on the housetop; when we have fought it out, and withstood and conquered a temptation, 
Hieron.  Difficile est Deo tantum judice contentum esse, we can hardly be brought to make God our judge, and leave it between him and ourselves, but use some art that multitudes may behold us. But when we are willing a temptation should prevail, nay when we tempt the temptation itself, and call it to us, we play least in sight; all is hushed in silence, and we are well content that God alone should be our judge.  
What then will make us walk humbly, but this persuasion that we walk with God, and that he sees us? For if any thing will do it, it must either be the Laws of men, or that Law within ourselves; but we shall see, that either these will not reach home, or that this twofold cord will be easily broken.  
For first, the Laws of men, though framed with the greatest wisdom, and diligence, and providence which can possess the largest hearts, yet have not strength enough to level our ways, or make our paths strait: nor do they comprehend all those sins which must needs offend that eye which can behold no evil; they condemn nothing but that which is seen and evident, nor do they censure our wills, but our deeds; they punish offences, and take away deceit, injustice, and cruelty, quatenus tenere manu res possunt, so far forth as they are within their hand and reach, saith Tully: 
Off. 3.  But the Law of God reacheth the inward man, curbs and bounds the extravagancies of our thoughts, which are as opposite to that order and policy which God hath set up amongst men, to bring them to happiness, as the foulest Disorders, Murders, Adulteries, Rebellion, can be to the peace of a Temporal Kingdom.  
Again, though the Laws of men carry some terror with them, yet as Aeneas Silvius speaks of the low esteem they of Vienna had of Excommunications, Tantum terrent quantum infamant, aut damno temporali sunt, Their terror is no more, than the smart, and loss, and infamy they bring; and though they be surda res, deaf and inexorable, yet a Bribe will not only blind the eyes, but change the countenance and voice of him that should keep them; and this leaves them weak and invalid to prevent or remove those irregularities which they threaten, but in vain, being in those hands which are open for a bribe, and then bind them up. Tertullian hath well observed, That the providence and authority of men in this do pariate and are alike; such as their wisdom is to demonstrate that which is good, such is their power to exact it; Tam illa falli facilis, quàm ista contemni, 
Tertull. Apol. c. 45.  their wisdom as subject to error, as their power to a baffle; the one may be deluded, and the other restrained; and both Omri and his statutes may be trod under foot. When we walk under the Laws of men, we walk as under a cloud, which every wind may carry about, and at last scatter and disperse; but when we walk under the Laws of God, we walk as under heaven, the Throne of God, which shall stand fast for ever; when we walk with men, we walk as with them whom we can sometimes delude, sometimes muzzle and bind; but when we walk with God, we walk with him who is every where, and sees every event; whose eye is ever open, whose hand is ever stretched out, and whose voice breaketh the Cedars of Libanus.  
But now, secondly: as the Laws of men do not so awe and regulate us but that we break out too oft beyond those bounds which Reason and Religion hath set up; no more doth the Law within us, the Law of our understanding, as Damascen calls the conscience, command or confine us in our walk; sometimes we gloss it, sometimes we slight it, sometimes we silence it, and some there be that seal it up, and sear it, as Saint Paul speaks, as with a hot Iron. If it speak to us we are deaf; if it renew its clamours, we are more averse; and if it check us we do 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, saith Saint Paul, beat and wound it more and more: multi famam, pauci conscientiam verentur, saith Pliny, the loudest noise our conscience can make is not heard, but the censure of men, which is not, most times worth our thought, is a thunderclap; we hear it, and we tremble; we are led like fools with melody to the stocks; what others say is our motion, and turns us about to any point, but when we speak to ourselves we hear it, but believe it not, fling it by and forget it. The voice of conscience is, defraud not your brother; nay, but we will overreach him: the voice of conscience is, Love thy neighbour as thyself; nay, but we will oppress him; the voice of conscience is, Love Mercy; nay, but we will love ourselves: what we speak to ourselves, ourselves soon make heretical. How Ambitious are we to be accounted Just, and how unwilling to be so? How loud are we against sin in the presence of others, and then make ourselves as invisible as we can that we may commit it? what a sin is uncleanness in the Temple, and what a blessing is it in the closet? with what gravity and severity will a corrupt Judge threaten iniquity? What? a pilferer? Let him be whipped. What? a murderer? He shall die the death: he whips the thief, and hangs the murderer, and indeed whips and hangs himself by a Proxy. So that we see, neither the power of the Laws, nor the respect and obedience we own to ourselves, are of any great force to prevail with us to order our steps aright, walk with men, or as before men. That may have some force, but it reacheth no further than the outward man. Walk with ourselves? give ear to ourselves? This might do much more; but we see the practice of it is very rare and unusual; That there is little hope that it will complete and perfect our walk, and make us Just and Merciful men, which is here required. It will be easy then to infer, that our safest conduct will be to walk with God, and to secure both the Laws of men, and that Law within us; that they may have their full power and effect in us, we must first raise and build up in ourselves this firm persuasion, that whatsoever we do, or think, is open to the eye of that God who is above us, and yet with us; That that discovery which he makes is infinitely and incomparably more clear and certain than that which we make by our senses; that we do not see our friend so plain as he seethe our hearts; that thou seest not the birds fly in the air so distinctly as he sees thy thoughts fly about the world, to those several objects which we have set up for our delight; that he sees, and observes that irregularity and deformity in our actions, which is hid from our eyes when our intention is serious, and our search most accurate. Yet nevertheless, though being as we are in the flesh, and so led by sense, were this belief rooted and confirmed in us, That he did but see us, as man sees us or were this as evident to our faith, as that is to our sense, we should be more watchful over ourselves, more wary of the devil's snares and baits than we commonly are; magna necessitas indicta pietatis, etc. saith Hilary, 
Hil. in. Psal. 178.  for there is a necessity laid upon us of fear and reverence, and circumspection, when we know and believe, That he now stands by as a witness who will come again and be our Judge. What a Paradise would the world be? what a heaven would there be upon earth, if this were generally and steadfastly believed? Glorious things are spoken of faith, we call it a full assent; we call it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a full and certain persuasion, It is the evidence of things not seen; I ask, is ours so? would to God it were; nay would for many of us, we did but believe that he is present with us, and sees what we do or think, as firmly as we do a story out of our own Chronicles; nay, as many times we do believe a lie; would our faith were but as a grain of mustardseed; even such a faith, if it did not remove mountains, yet would chide down many a swelling thought, would silence many a proud word, would restrain us from those actions which now we glory in, but would run from as from serpents, as from the devil himself, if we could fully persuade ourselves that a God of wisdom and Power were so near.  
And now in the last place; Let us cast a look upon those who for want of this persuasion, do walk on in the haughtiness of their hearts, and neither bow to the Laws of God or men, nor hearken to the Law within them; which notwithstanding could not be in them, were not this bright Eye and powerful Hand over them. And this may serve for Use and Application.  
Many walk, saith Saint Paul to the Philippians, of whom I have told you often, and now tell you weeping, that they are enemies to God. And first, the presumptuous sinner walks not with God, who hath first hardened his heart, and then his face as Adamant; whose very countenance doth witness against him; who declares his sins as Sodom and hides them not; and they who first contemn themselves, and then scornfully reject what common Reason and Nature suggest to them; and then at last, trusting either to their wit or wealth, conceive a proud disdain of all that are about them, and not a negative, but a positive contempt of God himself; first lose their reason in their lusts, and then their modesty, which is the only good thing that can find a place in evil: who do that upon the open stage, which they did at first but behind the curtain; who first make shipwreck of a good conscience, and then with the swelling sallies of Impudence, hasten to that point and haven which their boundless lusts have made choice of, as we should do to eternal happiness, per calcatum patrem, as Saint Jerome speaks, over Father and Mother, over all Relations, and Religion itself; forsake all these, not for Christ's sake and the Gospel, but for Mammon and the world. What foul pollutions, that grinding and cruel oppressions, what open profaneness have there been in the world? and we may ask wit the Prophet jeremiah, cap. 8.12. Confusi sunt? Were they ashamed when they committed abomination? Nay, they were not ashamed, neither could they have any shame, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Ephes. 4.18. for the hardness and blindness of their heart. For in sin and by sin they at last grow familiar in sin; cloth themselves with it as with a robe of Honour; bring it forth into open view, like Agrippa and Bernice in the Acts, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, with great state and pomp; They set it up, as Nabuchadnezzar did his Image of Gold, threescore Cubits high, to be seen of all; boast of their Atheism, and look down upon them with a contemptuous pity, as shallow, weak men, who go about to persuade such men as they, of quick and searching wits, that there is a God who both sees and hears them; and take it very ill, if we do but wish them well. Thus it is in every bold presumptuous sinner even as it was with the Devil, Depuduit, no sooner do they cast themselves down from Heaven, but they cast away all shame, and their modesty flies from them in the very fall, and their Motto is, Tush, God doth not see; And this sure is not to walk with God, but to walk and strut as Nabuchadnezzar did in his Palace, This is the Palace which I have built: Thus, thus have I done, and who dares fling a stone at it? To walk as Goliath did, in a coat of Brass, and defy the Host of Israel, and God himself. Goliath in front, etc. saith Austin; Goliath was smote in the forehead, and so are they. The disease indeed is in the heart, but it hath made an impression, and left a mark in the forehead. He that hath forgot to blush, doth not well remember that there is a God who looks upon him.  
Secondy, the dissembling sinner, the Hypocrite walks not with God: for he is but a Player of Religion, and being but a Slave, comes forth a King, and then treads his measures, puts it to the trial whether God hath an eye, whether he will take dross for silver, a superficies for a substance, a Fast for Repentance, a picture for the new creature. Archidamus said well of an old man, that had died and discoloured his hair, 'Tis not likely he should speak truth, qui mendacium in capite circumfert, who carries about with him a lie on his head; nor can he walk as with his God, whose very speech and gesture, whose very look is a lie. Where there are false lights there the ware is not warrantable; where there are privy doors, there the Priests will practise collusion, and eat up the Idols meat. If you see a labyrinth, it is either to conceal a strumpet or a Minotaur. That is true of the hypocrite which the Rabbis conceived of their Priests; He is like an Angel, visible or invisible as he please. Now this is not to walk with God, but to walk with our lusts, with our malice and Covetousness; to look upon them as we should do upon our God, to be careful that they are pleased and satisfied; to reverence them, to follow their behests and commands; to provide that these horseleeches be fed, our lust fed with pleasure, and our covetousness with gold; for these are the Hypocrites gods. As for the true God, they leave him behind them, and walk with nothing but his Name.  
Thirdly: The Apologizing sinner walks not with God, but runs himself into the thicket of excuses, Covers his transgressions as Adam, and hides his iniquity in his bosom, Job 31.33. Covers himself over with these leaves, which have no heat, no solidity in them, but will whither and die when the Sun shows itself, and be scattered before the wind, and leave him naked and miserable. He hath learned an art, (and he may quickly learn that of his sin, which needs and teacheth it) pavimentare peccata, (it is Saint Augustine's phrase) to smooth or plaster and parget over his deformities; he excuses the breach of one commandment with his zeal to another; the breach of his charity, by his love to his faith: He excuses sacrilege, by his hatred to Idolatry; his malice, by his zeal; he pleads ignorance where there is light enough, and weakness when he might be strong; and infirmity, where he presumes; and willingness, when he had no will; and will not consider that the devil speaks by all these, as he did to our first parents by the serpent; For this is no sin at all, and you shall not die at all, are all one. He speaks, saith Saint Austin by the mathematician, That he sins not, but his star. He speaks by the Manichee, That he sins not, but the Prince of Darkness. I may add, he speaks by the Anabaptist, 'Tis not he sins, but the Ass his body; By the Libertine, That God sins in him; and by the many, that the devil only is in fault. If we look upon it well, and send our eye abroad into the world, we may peradventure be tempted to think, that the world and all that therein is, were only made to yield matter out of which to forge and fashion an excuse; for what is there almost in the world which we do not lay hold on for that end? Adam the first man, is the first excuse, and we drew it out of his loins: Original sin, and after that the Law, the flesh, the will, the understanding, sin, obedience, the devils, and God himself are forced in to speak for us; and what was made the matter of virtue and obedience, is by us made the matter of excuse; we may be bold to say, This is not to walk with God, as if he had an all-seeing eye, but to flutter up and down, as the Raven did upon the waters, from excuse to excuse, but far from God and the Ark; so to walk as if we were quite out of his reach and sight.  
Last of all; The speculative sinner doth not walk with God, I mean, the man that breaks not out into action, but yet perfects his work in his mind; where the sinner doth that which he never doth, joins with that object which he shall never touch; commits adultery, and yet may be an Eunuch; plots revenge, and yet never strikes a stroke; grasps the wealth which he will not labour for; marries that beauty which he saw but once, and shall never see again; and there acts over those sins which he shall never bring into act; delights in that which he shall never enjoy, and robs and slays, and rides in triumph on a thought; and so leaves his God, who gave him this power and faculty to another end, and not to wallow in this mire, nor to be enslaved to the drudgery of so vile an employment; and yet too many are willing to persuade themselves, that God neither sees it nor regards it; that a thought is such Gozamour, of so thin an appearance, that it escapeth the eye, and so they set up a whole family of them in the mind, and dally and delight themselves with them as with their children. And yet this is the ground of all evil, and evil itself; wrought in the soul, which works by its faculties, as the body doth by its members, the eye and the hand; and thus it may beat down Temples, murder men, lay Kingdoms level with the ground, and it grows and multiplies, reflects upon itself with joy and content, & omnia habet peccatoris praeter manus, and hath all that makes a sinner but hands; and though men see not our thoughts, (for this is a royal prerogative) yet they are visible to his eye who is a spirit; and they that look upon them as bare and naked thoughts, and not as complete works finished in the soul, know not themselves, nor the Nature of God, and therefore cannot be said to walk with him.  
To conclude then: These walk not with God, and let us mark and avoid them. The presumptuous daring sinner walks not with him, but hides himself in this Atheistical conceit, that because man cannot punish, God doth not see. The hypocrite comes forth in a disguise, and acts his part, and because men applaud him, thinks God is of their mind; as the Pantomime in Seneca, who observing the people well pleased with his dancing, did every day go up into the Capitol, and dance before Jupiter, and was persuaded that he was also delighted in him. The Apologizer runs into the holes and burrows of excuses, and there he is safe; for who shall see him? The speculative sinner hides himself and all his thoughts in a thought, is this thought, that thoughts are so near to nothing that they are invisible; that sin is not sinful, till it speak with the tongue, or act with the hand. But the eye of God is brighter than the Sun, and his eyelids will try the children of men, Psal. 11. as the goldsmith trieth his gold in the fire, and will find out the dross, which we do not see. And if we will not walk with him, but walk contrary unto him, Levit. 26.22. He will also walk contrary unto us; He will see us, and not see us; know us, and not know us. 
Hilar. l. 9 de Trin.  Habemus nescientem Deum quod tamen non nescit, saith Hilary; God will seem not to know that which he doth know, and his ignorance is not ignorance but a mystery. For to them who walk not with him humbly, the word will be at the last day, I know you not, and God will keep state, and not know and acknowledge them. This pure God will not know the unclean, this God of truth will not know the dissembler, this strong and mighty God will bring down the imperious offender; this Light will examine thoughts, and excuses will fly before it as the mist before the Sun. But then, The Lord knows the ways of the Righteous, saith the Psalmist; and those that do justly, and love mercy, and walk as under his all-seeing eye with humility and reverence, he will lead by the hand, and go along with them, and uphold and strengthen them in their walk, and shadow them under his wing; and when their walk is ended, know them as he did Moses, above all men, and seeing his own marks upon them, beholding in them though a weak, yet the image of his Justice and his Mercy upon them, he will spare them as a Father spareth his Son that serveh him; he will know them, and love them, know them and receive them with an Euge, well done good and faithful servants, you have embraced the Good which I shown you, done the thing which I required of you; you have dealt Justly with your brethren, and I will be Just in my promises; you have showed Mercy, and Mercy shall crown you; you have walked humbly with me, I will now lift up your heads, and you shall inherit the Kingdom which was prepared for you from the foundation of the world.    
FINIS.   

 blazon or royal coat of arms of England and Wales HONI ●…T QVI MAL Y PENSE  
A SERMON PREACHED AT THE FUNERAL OF THE RIGHT WORSHIPFUL Sir GEORGE WHITMORE, Knight, Sometime Lord Mayor of the City of LONDON: Who departed this life Decemb. 12. 1654. At his house at balms in MIDDLESEX.  PSAL. 119.19. 
I am a stranger in the earth, hid not thy commandments from me.  
THis Psalm is a Psalm of David (so Saint Augustine, and Hilary, and others) or gathered by him, or out of him, and it is nothing else but a Collection of Prayers and Praises, a body of devout ejaculations, which the Greek Fathers call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, lively sparkles breathed forth from a heart on fire, and even sick with love; and they fly so thick, that observation can hardly take the order of them. The method of devotion follows and keeps time with the motion of the heart, which is as various and different, as those impressions which joy or grief, fear or hope make in it; which either contract and bind it up and then it struggles and labours within itself, and conceives sighs and groans which cannot be expressed or breaks forth into complaints and strong supplications; Take away the rebuke that I fear, v. 39 Let thy tender mercies come unto me that I may live, v. 77. and the like; or else dilate and open it, and then it leaps out of itself, and breathes itself forth with exultation and triumph, in songs of praise and Hallelujahs, O Lord, thou art my portion, v. 57 O how I love thy Law! v. 79. The Law of thy mouth is better unto me then thousands of gold and silver.  
In this which I have read unto you, and chosen as the fittest subject for this present occasion; The heart having looked abroad, having looked out of itself, and reflected back into itself, draws out in itself the picture of a stranger or a Pilgrim, and having well looked upon it with the serious eye of contemplation (which is the heart of the heart, and the soul of the soul) having surveyed the place of its habitation, how frail and ruinous it is, as a tent subject to the winds, and beat upon by every storm, and at last to be removed; it goes out of itself, and seeks for shelter under the shadow of God's wing, sends forth strong desires for supply and support; in hoc inquilinatûs sui tempore, as Tertullian speaks, in this time of its sojourning and Pilgrimage; and for that supply which is most answerable to the condition of a stranger upon earth, and which may best conduct him to the place for which he was born and bound. He asketh not for riches; they have wings and will fly away, and leave him in his walk, or if they stay with him they will but mock and delude him, and lead him out of his way; not for honour, that's but a breath, but air, and may breathe upon him at one stage, and at the next leave him, but never forward him in his way; not for delightful vanities; these are but ill companions and will lead him out of his way: the best supply for a stranger here upon earth is from heaven; from the place not where he sojourns, but to which he is going; the best convoy, the will and commandments of God; the word of God, the best lantern to his feet; for whilst these are in his eye and heart, he shall pass by slippery places, and not fall; he shall pass through fire and water, he shall walk upon the Lion and the Asp, he shall meet with flattering objects, and loathe them with terrorus, & contemn them; use the world as if he used it not; in poverty, & yet not poor; in affliction, but not distressed; in many a storm, and pass through, and rejoice in it; living in the world, and yet dead in the world, and so make his way through the valley and shadow of death to his journeys end, to that rest which remains for the people of God, who are but Strangers and Pilgrims upon earth. This is the best supply, and for this the Prophet puts up his petition in the words of my text, I am a stranger upon earth, hid not thy commandments from me.  
They are the words of the Kingly Prophet, and in the thirty ninth Psalm he hath the very same; Hold not thy peace at my tears, for I am a stranger with thee, and a sojourner as all my Fathers were; and in them he presents unto us his state and condition, and in his own, of all mankind. Menander fecit Andriam & Perinthiam, one man is the map of all mankind, and he that knows one knows them all. David was, and then all men are but accolae, inquilini, and howsoever their Pomp and Glory may dazzle the eyes of men, yet if we will define them aright, and set them out as they are, they are but strangers and Pilgrims upon earth.  
So that we have here first, a doctrine; declaring what we are; we are but strangers upon earth, that's our condition; he that is least in it is so, and he that hath most and is Lord of it, is no more; secondly, the use or inference; hid not thy commandments from me. For he that hath one eye upon his frailty and defects, will have another upon a supply; he that knows himself a stranger will desire a guide.  
Or you have our character, we are Accolae, strangers; and our 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or viaticum, our provision in our way, the commandments of God.  
Or if you please you may consider first the person, I, King David; secondly, his quality and condition, a King and yet a stranger on the earth; and these two draw together into one the two most different states of the world, a powerful Prince and a poor Pilgrim, him that sits on the Throne, and him that grinds at the mill, the crowned head, and that head which hath not a hole to hid itself. And thirdly, the reason why the Holy Ghost, to teach us our condition, doth make choice of a King; out of which we shall raise this doctrine, which is but a Paraphrase of the text, first, that man by nature is but a stranger to the world; secondly, that he is to make himself so. And that you may, I must hold out to you your viaticum, your provision, the commandments of God, and show you of what use they have been to you in this your peregrination and pilgrimage. 
I am a stranger in the earth, etc.  And first we must look on the person that speaks, and we may peradventure wonder that he speaks it; that he who was as a God upon the earth, and one of those whom God himself calleth so, should yet speak in the low and humble language of a Lazar, and count himself a stranger. We may well think the character doth but ill befit him: It may seem rather to be the speech of some one of the Rechabites, who by their Father Jonadab were forbade to build houses, to sow seed, to plant vineyards, or to have any, but all their lives to live in Tents, Jer. 35.6,7. Or of some of the Essenes', a Sect amongst the Jews, who left the City, and betook themselves to Fields and Mountains, 
Plin. Nat. Hist. l. 6.17.  (Gens aeterna, in qua tamen nemo nascitur, said Pliny of them; a lasting Nation, in which notwithstanding none were born, for they begat Sectaries and not Children) or of some of them of whom the Apostle speaks, Heb. 11. that wandered in deserts and mountains, in dens and caves of the earth: or of some Asceticall Monk, devoted and shut up in some cloister; or of some Anchoret, shut up between two walls. This speech had well befitted one of these; and had Demosthenes or Tully been to draw the character of a stranger upon earth, they would have brought him out of the streets or highways, out of some Cell or Prison, with all the marks about him; but their imagination would have passed by the Palaces of Princes, as yielding nothing of him; For a King is but a nickname, but a solecism, if he be not at home in every place. But the holy Ghost regards not this Rhetoric, observes not this art, which indeed is made up but by the eye; his method is è chola Coeli, drawn out by that wisdom which form and fashioned us, and knows whereof and what we are made; and that which flesh and blood counts a solecism, with him is the most exact propriety of language; what with us is looked upon as that which is against the rules of art, with him is most regular. I may say, truth is the spirits art, and those words which convey it are the best Elegancies; and thus to commend this lesson to us, he makes choice of a person to an eye of flesh most unlikely, as Elias in the book of Kings takes water to kindle the fire upon the Lord's Altar. A King on the earth and a stranger on the earth non benè convenient, and will hardly be coupled together in the same proposition. For how can they be strangers on earth, who are the only Lords and proprietaries of it? King's are Domini rerum temporumque, are Lords of the times, and of all affairs, and they carry all before them; this shall be the manner of the King, saith Samuel 1.7. He shall take your sons and your daughters, and make them his servants. He shall take your fields and your vineyards, and turn them to his own use. A King; the very name strikes a terror in us, and puts out of the best eye we have, our reason, that we cannot discern between the King and the Man, nor the man and the stranger; that we judge of him by what he is: Si libet, licet, His will is his Law, and what he doth is just, or he will make it so, for who dares say what dost thou? And yet this King, this God, is but a stranger, take him in his zenith: take all his broad-blown glories, his swelling titles, his overspreading power, and all are drawn together and shrunk up in this one word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Accola; whatsoever he is, whatsoever he appears, he is but a stranger. Behold here the Kingly Prophet makes it his profession, lays by the title of a King as guilty of a Misnomer, and calls himself a Pilgrim; and as in the darkness of Popery he that vowed a Pilgrimage either to our Lady, or some Saint, to Rome or to Jerusalem, did present himself before the Altar, and then receive his Scrip and Staff. So am I here this day occasioned by this Pilgrim, this honoured Knight, to exhort you to vow a Pilgrimage, not to this or that Saint, but to the King of Saints, and this you may do and stay at home; In your house and private closerts this Pilgrimage is best vowed, for the way to heaven is as near out of Britain as Jerusalem; and here you have a King to lead you, and his example to accompany you. For the words which I now read, do as it were bring him to the Church, where he presents himself before the Altar, lays down his Crown and Sceptre, and takes as it were his scrip and his staff, and vows himself a Pilgrim. 
I am a stranger in the earth, hid not, etc.   
And now to give you some reason why the holy Ghost makes choice of a King to teach this lesson: First, in this he setteth over us the best and wisest Masters, 
Peripatetici dicunt generari prudentiam 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. A Gell. Noct. Att. l. 13. c. 8.  because the Scholars and Disciples of Experience, Quam usus genuit, & mater peperit memoria, Begot by use and conversation in the world, and brought forth by memory. For those Conclusions which we gain by evidence of Reason, may be as sure, but not so operative and impressive as those which are drawn out by frequent and sensible observation. Those we behold as we do our face in a glass (as Saint James speaks) and then go away and forget them; and commonly they beget a knowledge which ends in itself, and so becomes more fatal than Ignorance. But those Lessons which Experience brings us, do leave a mark and impression behind them, and even  the soul, and so fill it that it must vent and evaporate, discourse to itself, and discourse to others what it hath seen and felt; and it flows naturally and forcibly from the very depth of Apprehension. He makes the fairest and the livelyest show of a stranger, who shows him in purple and on the throne. He will soon persuade you that you are mortal, who first shows you Death in his own face. He writes most effectually, who doth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, dip his pen in his mind, and then draw out those conclusions which long and sad experience hath taught him: For who fit to declaim against Riot, than he that hath fed with Swine? who can be a better Orator against Intemperance, than he that hath found the delusion of Wine, and the rage of Drink? who can disgrace beauty more than he that hath felt it by't like a Cockatrice? when Dives was in hell, how ready was he to be a Preacher of righteousness to his brethren? Experience doth make men both willing and able Instructers. And certainly to cast a slur on vanity, to decry the glory of the world, to teach the uncertainty of riches, and the folly of Ambition, to demonstrate that there is no solid or lasting Joy to be founded on any thing under the moon, they can best do who have had experience, and are examples of both fortunes, who have wallowed in wealth, and been mocked by it; who have lain in pleasure, and been stung; who have catcht at any evil that might carry them to that height they aimed at, and then been thrown down by the same evil that brought them up; who by long experience know what riches and Pleasures are; what wings the one have, and what horror the other leave behind them when they turn their back; who having had all their vain wishes made good, are brought at last to unwish and execrate them all, and forced to make this their last, that they had never had what they so much desired. Never was the world more severely censured then by those who have made most trial of it. No theme more usually handled by all sorts, then that of the contempt of the world, nusquam tamen humanum genus tam incredulum, tam surdum est, and yet who hears what himself says? or who believes his own report? the greatest part of men that speak against it, do it not out of hatred, but out of love to the world; for who more desirous to pluck the purple robe off from the rich man's back, than he that longs to wear it himself? how greedily do men surfeit on that meat which their injustice hath plucked out of the mouths of others? 
His invisa saenoratio quibus succurrere videtur. Columel.  It is with the world as with money let out upon use, men hate and revile it, yet are willing and use all means to bring it into their hands, though upon the hard and so much loathed condition of interest. The Philosophers have largely written of this subject, but most of that they wrote they wrote upon conjecture and guess, and scarce believed themselves in what they wrote; they have writ best who have been disciplined by their own folly, and have been taught not by the best, but yet by the surest mistress, experience; who have been so roughly handled in the ways which they chose and delighted in, that at last they were even forced to that proficiency, that they did indeed believe themselves. Solomon, who was a King, & wrote a bitter Satire against the world, did first taste the gall of every vanity, and then he wrote more fully, more profitably, then ever yet any Philosopher did in his cell; for having run over the whole work of the creation of the world, having watched the course of things, and every motion of his own heart; having been turned round as it were on the wheel of vicissitude and change, at last settles and rests upon this conclusion, which was drawn forth out of the full treasury of his experience: First he thought in his heart of what he had seen; and then he said in his heart, and fixed it up in lasting characters to be read in the world to the end of it, That, all that was in it was vanity. And therefore when a King thus pronounceth of himself that he is but a stranger, it must needs carry a far greater weight and argument of truth, then if a private unexperienced man had spoken it. David had experience of peace and war, of riches and poverty, of pleasures and woe; He had been a private and public person; a shepherd, a painful calling; a soldier, a bloody trade; a courtier, an honourable slavery, which joins together in one the Lord and the Parasite; the Gentleman and the Drudge; and he was a King, a glorious name, filled up with fears and cares; all these he had passed through, and found least rest when he was at the highest, less content in the Throne then in the sheepfolds; all this he had observed and laid up in his memory, and this his confession is an Epitome and brief of all; and in effect he tells us, that whatsoever he had seen in this his passage, whatsoever he had enjoyed, yet he found nothing so certain as this, that he had found nothing certain, nothing that he could abide with, or would abide with him, but was still as a passenger, and stranger on the earth.  
Now (to give you a second reason, why the spirit of God makes choice of a King to preach this lesson) as he chooseth the best and most experienced masters, so doth he condescend, and indulge to our infirmity, and appoints the fittest for us, and those of whom we will soon learn; whose first question commonly is, who is the Preacher? who deliver up our judgements to our affections, and converse rather with men's fortunes than their persons, and make use of no other rule in our censure of what is done or said, than the man himself that did or spoke it: if honour, or power, or wealth have made the man great in our eyes, than whatsoever he speaks is an Oracle, though it be the doctrine of devils, and have the same Father which all other lies have. Truth doth seldom go down with us, unless it be presented in the cup in which we love to divine and prophesy. There was a poor wise man found, saith Solomon, that delivered the City by his wisdom, Eccles. 9.15. but none remembered or considered this poor wise man. For poverty is a cloud, and casts a darkness over that which is begot of light, sullies every perfection that is in us, hides it from an eye of flesh, which cannot see wisdom and poverty together in one man; whereas folly itself shall go for wisdom, and carry away that applause which is due to it, if it dwell in the heart, or issue from the mouth of a purple and gallant fool; ut sumus sic judicamus, as we are so we judge; and it is not our reason which concludes, but our sense and affection. If we love beauty, every painted wanton is as the Queen of Sheba, and may ask Solomon a question; If riches, Dives with us will be a better Evangelist than Saint Luke; If our eyes dazzle at Majesty, Herod's royal apparel will be a more eloquent orator than he that speaks, and the people shall give a shout and cry, the voice of God and not of man. Do but ask yourselves the question, doth not affection to the person beget admiration in you, and admiration commend whatsoever he says, and gild over error and sin itself, and make them current? do not your hopes or fears or love make up every opinion in you, and build you up in your most unholy faith? Is not the Coward, or the Dotard, or the Worldling in your Creed and profession? do you not measure out one another as you do a tree by the bulk and trunk, and count him best who is most worth? Is not this the compass by which you steer? the bond of your peace? Is not this the cement of all your friendship? doth not this outward respect serene or cloud your countenance, and as the wind, the state of things change, make you to day the dearest friends, and to morrow the deadliest enemies? can you think ill of them you gain by? or speak ill of them you fear? or can he be evil who is powerful? or dare you be more wise than he that hath thirty legions? We may say this is a great evil under the sun, but it is the property of the blessed spirit to work good out of evil, to teach us to remember what we are, by those who so soon make us forget what we are; to make use of riches which we dote on, of power, which we tremble at, of that glory which we have in Admiration, to instruct us to the knowledge of our condition, and to put us in mind of our mortality and frailty by Kings, whom we count as Gods. Behold a King from his Throne proclaims it to his subjects and all the world, That his power is but as a shadow cast from a mortal; his glory, but his garment which he cannot wear long; and his riches, but the embroidery, which will be as soon worn out. And when we have gazed and fallen down and worshipped, and are thus lost in our own thoughts, if we could take away the film from our eye, which the world hath drawn over it, and see every thing in its nature and substance as it is, we should behold in all these rays of glory, and power, and wealth, nothing but David the stranger. So that we see Kings, who are our nursing Fathers, are become our Schoolmasters to teach us. For we see the ignorant and foolish men perish, and they die as fools die, not remembered nor thought on, as if nothing fell to the ground, but their folly. The beggar dies, but what is that to the rich, who cannot see him carried by the Angels into Abraham's bosom? the righteous also perish, and no man lays it to heart. I but Kings of the earth fall, and cannot fall but with observation, but they fall as a star, are soon missed in their orb, and soon forgot. But then living Kings make their Throne a Pulpit, and preach from thence and publish to the world their own frail and fading condition, measure out their life by a span, and prophesy the end of it, call their life a Pilgrimage; and shall we not hearken what the Lord God doth say by such royal Prophets? shall their power make us beasts of burden to carry it whithersoever their beck shall direct us, and shall not their doctrine and example persuade us that we are men, travelling men, hasting to another country? behold then here David a Prophet and a King, made and set up an ensample to us; and if David be a stranger upon the earth, we can draw no other conclusion than this, then certainly much more we. If David and all his Fathers, If pious Kings and bloody Tyrants, If good and bad found no settled estate, no abiding place here, why should we be so foolish and ignorant, as to turmoil, or sport and delight ourselves under the expectation of it? If Kings be pulled down from their Thrones, and fall to the dust, we have reason to cast up our accounts, and reckon upon it that we are gliding and passing, nay posting and flying as so many shadows, and that our removal is at hand. For these things happened to them for ensamples, and they are written for our admonition. They prophesied to us, and they spoke to us, I may say, they died to us, and to all that shall follow them, to the last man that shall stand upon the earth. When Adam had lived nine hundred and thirty years, he died, lead the way to his posterity, not that they should live so long, but that they should surely die, to every son of his, till the coming of the second and last Adam; Abraham a stranger, and Moses a stranger, and David a stranger, that we might look back upon them, and see our condition. And when Patriarches and Prophets, when Kings preach, not only living but dying, not only dying but dead, we shall not only die, but die in our sins if we take not out the lesson; and learn to speak in their dialect and language, Accolae sumus & peregrini, we are strangers and Pilgrims on the earth. And so we pass from the person, I King David, and come to take a nearer view of his condition, and quality; 
I am a stranger on the earth.   
We pass now from the King to the stranger and Pilgrim, and yet we cannot pass from the one to the other, for they are ever together; for there is so near a conjunction between them, that though the one appear in glory, the other in dishonour; the one sits on a Throne, the other lies in the dust; yet they can never be put asunder, nor separated the one from the other; for he that is a King is but a Pilgrim, and he that is a stranger was born and designed unto a Kingdom, and a greater Kingdom than david's was. Thou hast made us unto our God Kings and Priests, and we shall reign upon the earth. This is the song of Pilgrims, and they sing it to the Lamb, in the fifth of the Revelation, v. 10. The Kingdom of heaven is taken by violence, and the violent take it by force, Mat. 11.12. And these violent men are such as are Pilgrims and strangers; to that place they travel, endure many a storm, many a fall and bruise in their way; so that the immediate way to be a King, is first to be a stranger in the earth.  
Now that Man is naturally a stranger on the earth, we have the Word of God written, and the Word of God within us; we have both the holy Scripture, and right Reason to instruct us; both these are as the voice of God, and by these he speaks unto us, and calls us by our name when he calls us strangers.  
And first in the Old Testament, the life of Man is every where almost termed a pilgrimage; so Jacob in the 47. of Genesis, when Pharaoh asked him, How long he hath lived? in his answer doth as it were correct his language; The days, saith he, not of my life, but of my pilgrimage are an hundred and thirty years. So that in the language of Jacob Life and Pilgrimage are all one. The same is the language of the New Testament: Whilst we are in the flesh, Peregrinamur à Domino, saith Saint Paul, 2 Cor. 5.6. we are absent, we are travellers, we are wanderers from God; but we are returning to him, on our way, pressing forward to our home. And though we make haste out of the world, yet as S. Bernard observes, some savour, some taste, something that is from the earth earthy, we shall carry about with us till we come to our journey's end. Not only they are strangers, who with the Prodigal take their journey into a far country, and cleave to every vanity there; but they who are shaking them off every day, yet look more than they should, and like more than they should, and are not yet made perfect; Not only they are strangers from God who are Aliens from the house of Israel, but they who with the Patriarches in the 11. to the Heb. confess themselves strangers in the land which is allotted them, and look for a City whose Foundation and Builder is God. It is the observation of S. Hierome in his Epistle to Dardanus, That the Saints in Scripture were not where called Inhabitatores terrae, the inhabitants of the earth. There is a woe, saith he denounced, against sinners, in the eighth of the Revelation, and under that name; vae habitatoribus terrae, woe to the Inhabitants of the earth. And Saint Austin almost speaks the same, where he puts this difference and distinction between them; that the righteous can only be said esse in Tabernaculo carnis, to be in this tabernacle of the flesh, to be there, as the Angels are said by the schoolmen to be in uno loco, quòd non sint in alio, to be in one place, because they are not in another, but to be circumscribed no where; and they are only said to be on the earth, because they are not yet in heaven, but nevertheless have their conversation there; but the wicked do habitare in Tabernaculo carnis, do dwell on earth, and have their residence in it, and may pass into a worse, but never into a better place; and these though they will not be strangers to it, yet are strangers on the earth, and pass away from that to which their soul was knit, on which they fixed their hope, and glutted their desires, and raised their joy, which was their heaven; they pass away and fall from it, and shall see it no more.  
This then is the voice and language of Scripture; and in the second place, this even common reason may teach us, which is the voice of God, and is our God upon earth, and should be in his stead and place to command and regulate us here, and if we were not first lost in ourselves, if we were not strangers to ourselves, we should not seek for a place of rest in that world, whose fashion every day changeth, and which must at last with its work be burnt with fire. For do we not see by this common light, that the mind of man is a thing of infinite capacity, and utterly insatiable, and here on earth never receives full content? content is that which all men have desired, but never yet any did attain; but still as one desire is satisfied, another riseth; and when we have all that we desired, we will have more; now we would have but this, and when we have it, it is nothing, for our measures are enlarged by being filled. Are you learned enough? nay, but there be yet more conclusions to be tried. Are you ever wise enough? If but once you be deceived, you will complain that a thousand things which might have been observed have past your sight. But are you ever rich enough? The fool in the Gospel was not, till his soul was fetched away, nor Dives, till he was in hell. Nay, are you not most miserably poor when you are most abundantly rich? do you not want most, when you have most? or was ever your heart so much set on riches as when they did increase? or hath the Ambitious any highest place, any vertical point? one world was not enough for Alexander; and had there been as many as those Atoms of which Democritus made it up, he would have wished after more. Our appetite comes by eating, and our desires are made keen and earnest by enjoying, majora cupere ex his discimus, the obtaining of something doth but prompt us to desire more. And now to draw this to our present purpose; If the things of this world be not able to satisfy us, if never man yet found full content, if nothing on earth can allay this infinite hunger of the soul, which certainly was not imprinted in us in vain; If we cannot find it here, though we should double and triple Methusalems' age; If we cannot find it in the world, though we should live to the end of it, we cannot think that the earth should be our country, but that the things which we so highly esteem more than our life, more than our soul, are unnatural and strangers to us, and we unto them, and we must turn ourselves about, and look towards something else which may meet and fill our desires, which here find nothing to stay, but every thing to enlarge them. Here are delights that vanish, and then show their foulest side; here are riches that makes us poor, and honour that makes us slaves; here are nothing but phantasms and apparitions, which will never fill us, but feed the very hunger of our souls, and increase it; there in our country, at our journey's end, there is fullness of joy, which alone can satisfy this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and infinite appetite: and therefore the earth is but our stage to walk through, heaven is our proper place and country, and to this we are bound; here we are but strangers, si velimus accolae, si nolimus acccolae, if we will we may be strangers, and if we will not, but love to dwell and stay here, yet we shall be strangers whether we will or no.  
And as we are, so our abode here is that of strangers in another country, as of those who are ever in their way, and moving forwards, never standing still, but striving to go out of it; and his whole motion and progress is a leaving it behind him. When Adam was Lord of all the world, he was but a stranger in it; for God made him naked in Paradise, and withal gave him no sense of his nakedness, and the reason is given by Saint Basil, that man might not be distracted and called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, from meditation upon God; that the care of his flesh might not steal away his mind from him that made him; so that Adam was made a stranger, when he was made the sole Emperor of the world. But when he was fallen, God clothes him with skins, ut illum veluti morte quadam indueret, saith Proclus in Epiphanius, that he might cloth him as it were with death itself, which was represented unto him in the skins of dead beasts; that he might always carry about with him the remembrance of it, the most suitable garment that a stranger or Pilgrim can wear. A stranger comes not to stay long in a place, he is here (as we say) to day and gone to morrow, so is man; he flieth as a post, or rather as a shadow, and continueth not, Job 14. At an end as soon as a tale that is told, and not so long remembered. There may be many errors in his way, but there is none in his end; and which way soever he travels, wheresoever he pitcheth his tent, his journeys end is the grave. 
Tertull. 〈◊〉 Anima. c. 50.  Hoc stipulata est Dei vox, hoc spopondit omne quod nascitur, saith Tertullian; this is the stipulation and bargain, which God hath made with every soul, and by being born we made a promise, and obliged ourselves to die. We are bound in a sure obligation, and received our souls upon condition to resign them pure and unspotted of the world. Would you know when we pay this debt? we begin with our first breath, and are paying it till we breathe out our last; hoc quod loquor indè est, whilst I speak, and you hear, we are paying part of the sum, and whether this be our last payment we cannot tell. I am dying whilst I am a speaking; every breath I fetch to preserve life, is a part taken from my life: I am in a manner entombed already, and every place I breathe in is a grave; for in every place I moulder and consume away, 
Suit. vit. Claud. Caes.  in every place I draw nearer and nearer to putrefaction. We may say as those mariners who were to fight and die did, as they say'ld by Claudius the Emperor, Morituri te salutant, O Emperor dying men salute thee; and so we pass by and salute one another, not so much as living but as dying men; and whilst I say good morrow, I am nearer to my end, and he to whom I wished it, is nearer to his; one dying man blesseth, and one dying man persecutes another, that is, one Pilgrim robs another. In what relation soever we stand, either as Kings or subjects, of masters or servants, of Fathers or children, we are all Morituri, but dying men, all but strangers and pilgrims. Comfort thou thyself than thou oppressed innocent; 'Twas a dying man that put the yoke about thy neck; and why dost thou boast in mischief, thou man of power? In the midst of all thy triumphs and glories thou art but a dying man: He that kisseth thy lips is but a dying man; and he that strikes thee on the face is but a dying man. The whole world is but a Colony, every age new planted with dying men, with pilgrims and strangers.  
This you will say is a common theme and argument, and indeed so it is; for what more common than death? and yet as common as it is, I know no lesson so much forgotten as this: for who almost considers how he came into the world, or how he shall go out of it? Ask the Wanton, the Mammonist, the Ambitious of their minute, and they will call it Eternity, Sol iste, dies nos decipit, etc. The present, the present time, that deceives us, and we draw that out to a lasting perpetuity, which is past whilst we think on't; such a bewitching power hath the love of the world, to make our minute eternity, and eternity nothing; and the day of our death as hard and difficult to our faith as our resurrection. For though day unto day uttereth knowledge, though the preacher open his mouth, and the grave open hers, and we every day see so many pilgrims falling in, though they who have been dead long ago, and they who now die, speak unto us; yet we can hardly be induced to believe that we are strangers, but embrace the world, and rivet ourselves into it as if we should never part, and we deny that which we cannot deny, resolve on that which we cannot think, will not be persuaded of that which we do believe, or believe not that which we confess, but place immortality upon our mortal, & so live as if we should never die. And can we who thus every day enlarge our thoughts and hopes, and let them out at length beyond our threescore years and ten, measuring out Lordships, building of Palaces, anticipating pleasures and honours, creating that which will never have a being, and yet delighting in it as if we now had it in possession; can we who love the world as that friend from which we would never part, but lose all others for it; can we who would have this to be the world without end, and have scarce one thought left to reach at that which is so, and to come; can we who love, and admire, and pride ourselves in nothing more, in nothing else, say or think we are pilgrims, and sojourners, and strangers in the earth?  
'Tis true, strangers we are (for all are so) and passing forward apace to our journeys end, but not to that end for which we were made; and therefore that we may reach and attain to it, we must make ourselves so, put off the old man, which loves to dwell here, take off our hopes and desires from it, look upon all its glories as dung, look upon the world as a strange place, and upon ourselves as strangers in it; and look upon the place to which we are going, and fling off every weight, and shake off every vanity; every thing that is of the earth, earthy, make haste and delay not, but leave it behind us, even while we are in it; for a Christian man's life is nothing else but a going out of it.  
And to this end (in the last place) you must take along with you your viaticum, 
Hid not thy commandments from me.  your provision, The Commandments of God: (Hid not thy commandments from me, saith David; and he spoke as a stranger, and as in a strange place, as in a place of danger, as in a dark place, where he could not walk with safety, if this light did not shine upon him.) For here we meet with variety of objects; here are serpents to flatter us, and serpents to by't us; here are pleasures and terrors, all to deceive and detain us. Here we meet with that arch-enemy to all strangers and pilgrims in several shapes, now as a roaring Lion, and sometimes as an Angel of light; and though we try it not out at Fists with him (as those foolish Monks boasted they had often tried this kind of hardiment) though we meet him not as a Hyppocentaure, 
Hieron. de vita Pauli Eremitae, & Malchi & Hilarionis.  as the story tells us Paul the Hermit did; as a Satire, or shee-wolf, as Hilarion did, to whom were presented many fearful things, the roaring of lions, the noise of an Army, and chariots of fire coming upon him, wolves and foxes, and sword-plaiers, and I cannot tell what. Though we do not feel him as a Satire, yet we feel him as voluptuous; though we do not see him as a wolf, yet we apprehend him thirsting after blood; though we meet him not in the shape of a fox, yet non ignoramus versutias, we are not ignorant of his wiles and enterprises; though we do not see him in the tempest, we may in our fear; and though his hand be invisible, yet we may feel him in our impatience, and falling from the truth; we cannot say in our affliction, this is his blow, but we may hear him roar in our murmuring: or we may see him in that mongrel Christian made up of ignorance and fury, of a man and a beast, which is more monstrous than any centaur: we may see him in that hypocrite, that deceitful man, who is a fox, and the worst of the cub; we may meet him in that oppressor who is a wolf; in that Tyrant and persecutor who is a roaring lion.  
And in some of these shapes we meet him every day in this our Pilgrimage; and here in the world we can find nothing to secure us against the world; adversity may swallow up pleasure in victory, but not the love of it; impotency and inability may bridle and stay my Anger, but not quench it; Providence may defend me from evil, but not from fear of it; nor can the world yield us any weapon against itself: and therefore God hath opened his Armoury of heaven, and given us his commandments to be our light, our provision, our defence in our way; to be as our Pilgrims staff, our Scrip, our letters commendatory, to be our Angels to keep us in all our ways, and there is no safe walking for a stranger without them. And as when the children of Israel were in the wilderness, he reigned down Manna upon them, and led them as it were by the hand, till he brought them to the land of promise, so he deals with them, with all that call upon his name whilst they are in via, in this their peregrination, ever and anon beset with temptations which may detain and hinder them; he raines down abundance of his grace, which like that Manna will serve the appetite of him that takes it, and is like to that which every man wants, applies itself to every taste, to all the callings and conditions, to all the necessities of a stranger. Thus we walk by faith, 2 Cor. 7. Festina fides, and faith is on the wing, and leaves the world behind us, is the substance and evidence of things not seen, and looks not on those things which are seen, and please a carnal eye; or if it do, looks upon them as Joshua did upon Ai, and first turns the back, and then all its strength against them, makes us fly from them that we may overcome them. For this is the victory which overcometh the world, even our faith. And Festina spes, hope too is in her flight, and follows our forerunner Jesus, to enter with him that which is within the veil, Heb. 6.19. even the holy of holies, heaven itself; spe jam sumus in coelo, we are already there by hope, and to him that hath seen the beauty of holiness, the world is but a loathsome spectacle; to him that truly trusteth in God, it is lighter than vanity, and he passeth from it. And then our love of God is our going forth, our peregrination; it is a perishing, a death of the soul to the world, and if it be truly fixed, no pleasure, no terror, nothing in the world can concern us, but they are to us as those things which the traveller in his way sees, and leaves every day; and we think no more of the glory of them then they who have been dead long ago. For we are dead, saith the Apostle, Coloss. 3.3. and our life is hid, hid from the world with Christ in God: our temperance tasteth not, our chastity toucheth not, our poverty in spirit handleth not those things which lie in our way, but passeth by them as impertinencies, as dangers, as those things which may pollute a soul more than a dead body could under the Law. The stranger, the pilgrim passeth by all, his meekness makes injuries, and his patience afflictions, light; and his Christian fortitude casteth down every strong hold, every imagination, which may hinder him in his course. Every act of piety is a kind of sequestration, and drives us, if not from the right, yet from the use of the world. Every virtue is to us as the Angel was to Lot, and bids arise, and go out of it; takes us by the hands, and bids us haste and escape for our life, and not to look behind us. And with this provision, as it were with the two Tables in our hand, we come nearer and nearer to the end of our faith, the end of our hope, and the end of our love. For he that looks upon the commandments and keeps them hath the will of God, and he that hath his will, hath all that wisdom can find out, or power bring to pass, hath God's providence and almightiness his companions, his guides, his protection in his way, and the world, the pomp and vanity of it can no more prevail against him than it can against God himself; but where God is there shall this stranger be also, when passing through all these he shall come to his journey's end.  
For first, (that we may make some use of this, and so conclude) this our conformity to the will of God in keeping his commandments, will make us observe a Decorum, and being strangers in the earth to behave ourselves as strangers in it, for necessity's sake give a perfunctory and slight salute, not look upon it as a friend, not to trust it, not to trust in uncertain riches, but in the living God, as Saint Paul exhorteth, 1 Tim. 17. but to suspect and be jealous of every thing in it, 
Theophr. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  as we use to be of every man we meet in a strange place; and as plain countrymen, who are ignorant of coins, suspect and try every piece they see, and though it be current, yet fear it may be counterfeit. So to say within ourselves, this beauty which smiles may by't as a cockatrice; this wine which looks red may be a mocker; these riches may be my last receipt; this strength may ruin me; this wit may befool me; that which makes me great in my own eyes, that for which I flatter and worship myself, and tread all others with scorn under my feet, may make me the least in the Kingdom of heaven, nay quite shut me out; this beauty may bring deformity into my soul; this wine may be as the Manichees called Fel principis tenebrarum, the gall of the Prince of darkness, and these riches may beggar me, and my Perfections undo me. Far better is it for a stranger to be cautelous and wary, then too venturous and foolhardy; better for him to fear where no fear is, then to be ready to meet and embrace every toy and trifle that smiles and kills. Now, by this we arm ourselves against all casualties and misfortunes, which is more than all the conveyances and devises of the Law, more than the providence of the wisest can do. For what can fall out by chance to him who is ever under the wing of the almighty? or what can be lose who hath denied all unto himself, and himself too in every aspect and relation to the world? This is our provision, and this is our security; & he that will be secure must learn to be a stranger; he that will lose nothing must learn to have nothing; and then as our obedience to Gods will doth keep us in a decorum, so it teacheth us by looking on the world with an eye of jealousy to make it our friend, a friend of Mammon, and a friend of a temptation; for so we make that which was dangerous beneficial unto us, and rise up as high as heaven upon that which might have been our ruin, by looking upon it with the suspicious and jealous eye of a stranger.  
Secondly, It supplies us with arms, and strengthens us against all afflictions, which may beat upon us, all miseries which befall us, all contumelies which may affront us in our way; for what are all these poor sprinklings, these weak breathe of wind and air to us, when we remember we are but strangers in the world? The world knows us not, because it knows not God, as Saint John tells us, 1 Ep. 3.1. peregrini deorsùm, cives sursùm, strangers here below, but Citizens above. What can they who are so unlike to the world, who contemn the world, expect less? here there will be Shimeis to revile us, Zedekiahs to smite us on the cheek, oppressors to grind us, and Tyrants to rob and spoil us when they please; and if we will have them our friends, we must make ourselves like them, and go to hell along with them; but the commandments of God are an Antidote against all these. For these evil cannot trouble us if we make use of the right remedy, which is not where to be found but in Christ, in whom all the treasuries of wisdom are hid. But one error of our lives it is, and a great one, to mistake the remedy of evils, nec tam morbis laboramus quàm remediis, nor doth our disease and malady so much molest us, as the remedies themselves. The poor man thinks there is no other remedy for poverty, but riches; the revenger cannot purge his gall and bitterness, but with the blood of his enemy; the sick is quieted with nothing but with health: but indeed these are not remedies answerable to the nature and operation of these several diseases, for the poor man may become rich, and be poorer than before; the revenger may draw blood, and be more enraged then before; the sick man may be restored to health, and be worse than before; the will of God is the truest, and most sovereign physic, and his will is that we estrange ourselves from the world; that our hearts be fixed on him, and on those pleasures which are at his right hand for evermore. And then there will be no such things as Poverty, or Injuries, or Sickness, or at least they will not appear so to us, which is all one; nay, which is more, for now they are not what they are unto us, nor do we see that horror in them, which they that dwell in the world do, but as Saint Paul speaks, when we are poor than we are rich, when we are weak than we are strong, when we are in disgrace than we are honourable, when we are persecuted than we are happy, when we are sick than we are best in health, and even see our journey's end. Nihil imperitius impatientia, Impatience which ever accompanies the neglect of God's commands, is the most ignorant, unskilful, inexperienced, the most ungodly thing in the world. For these complaints in poverty, this impatience of injuries, this murmuring in our sickness, are ill signs that we love the pleasures of the world more than the will of God; that we see more glory in a piece of earth, than virtue; that we are more afraid of a disgrace then of sin; that we bow with more devotion and affection to the world then to God, and so cannot make this glorious confession with our Kingly Prophet, that we are Accolae and peregrini, strangers and pilgrims upon the earth.  
Thirdly, our conformity to the will of God is a precious Antidote against the fear of death; the fear of death? why we were delivered from that, when Christ took part with us of flesh and blood, Heb. 2.14. and through death destroyed him who had the power of death, the devil, why should any mortal now fear to die? It is most true, Christ died, and by his death shook the powers of the grave; Consummatum est, all is finished, and he is returned victoriously with the spoils of his enemies, and of this last enemy death. But for all this his triumph, death may be still the King of terrors, and as dreadful as before. All is finished on his part, but a covenant consists of two, and something is required on ours. He doth not turn Conditions into Promises, as some have been willing to persuade themselves, and others; It must be done, is not, thou shalt do it; If thou wilt believe, is not, thou shalt believe. But every promise, every act of grace of his implies a condition. He delivers those that are willing to be delivered, who do not feed death, and supply this enemy with such weapons as make him terrible. All the terror death hath is from ourselves, our sin, our disobedience to the commands of God, that's his sting. And our part of the covenant is, by the power & virtue of Christ's death every day to be plucking it from him, and at last to take it quite away. We, we ourselves must rise up against this King of terrors, and in the Name and Power of Christ take the Sceptre out of his hand, and spoil him of his strength and terror. And this we may do by parts and degrees, now cut from him this sin, now that; now this desire, and anon another, and so die daily, as Saint Paul speaks, die to profit, die to pleasure, die to Honour, be as dead to every temptation which may beget sin in us, and a sting in him; and so leave him nothing to take from us, not a desire, not a hope, not a thought, nothing that can make us fear death. Then we shall look upon it not as a divorcement from those delights which we have cast off already, or a passage into a worse condition from that we loved too well, to that we never feared enough; but we shall consider it as a sleep, as it is to all wearied pilgrims, as a message sent from Heaven to tell us our walk is at an end, and now we are to lay down our staff and scrip, and rest in that Jerusalem which is above, for which we vowed this pilgrimage: Et quis non ad meliora festinat? 
Tert. de patientia.  What stranger will be afraid to return to his Father's house, or lose that life, quam sibi jam supervacuam fecit, which by dying daily to the world he hath already made superfluous and unnecessary? To conclude this: He that truly fears God can fear nothing else, nor is Death terrible to any but to those who would build their tabernacle here, who love to feed with swine on husks, because they have not tasted of the powers of the world to come, who wish immortality to this mortal, before they put it on; who are willing to converse and trade with vanity for ever, who desire not with David to be spared a little, but would never go hence.  
Last of all, It will moderate our sorrow for those our friends who are dead, or rather fallen asleep, or rather at their journey's end. For why should any man who knows the condition of a stranger, how many dangers, how many cares, how many storms and tempests he was obnoxious to, hang down the head and complain that he had now passed through them all, and was set down at his journey's end? why should he who looks for a City to come, be troubled that his fellow pilgrim came thither, and entered before him? It might be a matter of holy Emulation perhaps, but why it should afflict us with grief I cannot see, unless it be because we have not made it our meat and drink to keep God's commandments, which might give us a taste of a better estate to come, unless it be because we have not well learned to act the part of a stranger. Miserable men that we are, that we will be; that know not our own quality and condition that are strangers, and yet unwilling to draw near ourselves, or to see others come to their home, but think them lost where they are made perfect. We stand by the bed of our sick and dying friend as if he were now removed to a place of torment and not of rest, and to be either nothing or more miserable than he was in a region of misery; we send out shrieks and outcries to keep time with his gasps, to call him back, if it were possible, from heaven, and to keep him still under the yoke and harrow; when as the fainting of his spirits, the failing of his eyes, the trembling of his joints, are but as the motion of bodies to their centre, most violent when they are nearest to their end. And then we close up his eyes, and with them our hopes, as if with his last gasp he had breathed out his soul into air; when indeed there is no more than this, one pilgrim is gone before his fellows, one gone, and left others in their way in trouble, and more troubled that he is gone to rest. Migrantem migrantes praemisimus, saith Saint Hierom, we are passing forward apace, and have sent one before us to his journey's end, his everlasting sabbath. With this contemplation doth religion comfort and uphold us in our way, and keeps us in that temper which the Philosopher commends as best, in which we do sentire desiderium & opprimere, she gives nature leave to draw tears, but then she brings in faith and hope to wipe them off; 
Sen. ad Marciam.  she suffers us to mourn for our friends, but not as men without hope. Nature will vent, and love is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, saith the Orator, ever querulous and full of complaints when the object is removed out of sight; and God remembers whereof we are made, is not angry with our love, and will suffer us to be men, but then we must silence one love with another, our natural affection with the love of God; at least divide our language thus, Alas my Father, Alas my Husband, Alas my Friend; but then he was a stranger, and now at his journey's end; and here we must raise our note; and speak it more hearty, Blessed are such strangers, blessed are they that die in the Lord, even so saith the spirit, that they rest from their labours.  
For conclusion; let us fear God, and keep his commandments, this is the whole duty of a stranger, to observe those Laws, which came from that place to which he is going, let these his Laws be in our heart, and our heart will be an elaboratory, a limbeck, to work the water of life out of the vanities and very dregs of world, through which we are to pass. It shall be as a rock firm and solid against every wave and temptation that shall beat against it, and a shop of precious receipts, and proper remedies against every evil; It shall be spoliarium mortis, a place where death shall be stripped and spoiled of its sting, and of its terror. In a word; It shall be the Temple of God, an house of feasting and joy, where sorrow may look in at the window, at the sensitive part, but be soon chased away: It shall be even ashamed of its Tabernacle of flesh, and pant and beat to get out, that it may be clothed upon, and mortality be swallowed up of life. In brief, it will make us strangers, and keep us strangers, even such strangers, which shall be made like unto the Angels, and whom when they come to their journey's end, the Angels shall meet, and welcome, and receive into their Father's house, where they shall rest, and rejoice for evermore.  
I have done with my Text, and now must turn your eyes and thoughts upon this pilgrim here, this Honoured and worthy Knight, who hath now passed through the busy noise and tumults of this world to his long home and rest. In which passage of his (as I have received it from men of place and worth, and unquestioned integrity) he hath so exactly performed the part and office of a stranger and pilgrim, that he is followed with the applause of them that knew him; and as in his death he is become an argument to prove the doctrine which I have taught, so in his life he made himself a great ensample for them to look upon who are now travelling and labouring in the same way.  
Look upon him then in every capacity and relation, either as a part of the Commonwealth, or a member of the City, or a Father of a Family, and you shall discover the image and fair representation of a stranger in every one of these relations; for no man can take this honour to himself to be a good Commonwealths-man, a good master of a family but he who is as David was, a stranger. All the ataxy and disorder, all the noise we hear, and mischiefs we see in the world, are from men who love it too well, and would live and dwell and delight themselves in it for ever.  
For the first; I may truly say as Lampridius did of Alexander Severus, he was vir bonus & Reipublicae necessarius, he was a good man and of necessary use in a Commonwealth, and laid all the strength he had to uphold it, and preferred the peace and welfare of it to his own, as well knowing that a private house might sink and fall to the ground, and yet the Commonwealth stand and flourish; but that the ruin of the whole must necessarily draw with it the other parts, and at last bury them in the same grave. And here he found as rough a passage as Aufidienus Rufus in Tacitus did in that commotion and rebellion of Percennius, 
Tacit. l. 1. Annal.  who was pulled out of his chariot, loaded first with scoffs and reproaches, and then with a farthel of stuff, and made to march foremost of all the company, and then asked in scorn, whether he bore his burden willingly? or whether so long a journey was not tedious and irksome to him? so was this worthy Knight taken from his wife whom he entirely loved, and from his children those pledges of his love, conveyed to ship, and by ship to prison in a remote City, where he found some friends, and then brought back from thence to a prison nearer home, where (if the providence of God had not gone along with him, and shadowed him) he had met the plague; so that in some measure that befell him which Saint Paul speaks of himself, He was in journeying often, in perils of waters, in perils of his own Countrymen, in perils in the City, in perils on the Sea, in perils amongst false brethren.  
But it may be said, what praise is it to suffer all this, if he suffer as an evil doer, and for conscience towards God? I come not hither to dispute that, but am willing to refer it to the great trial which shall open every eye to behold that truth, which now being dazzled with fears and hopes, and even blinded with the love of the world, it cannot see. But if it were an error, and not knowledge but mistake drove him upon these pricks, yet sure it was an error of a fair descent, begot in him by looking steadfastly on the truth, by having a steady eye on the oath of God, Eccles. 8.2. and if here he fell, he fell like a Christian, who did exercise himself to keep a good conscience; for he that follows not his conscience when it errs, will be as far from harkening to it when it speaks the truth; for even error itself shows the face of truth to him that errs, or else he could not err at all. And yet (I need not fear to say it) It is an error of such a nature, that it may rather deserve applause then censure, even from those who call it by that name; for we do not use to fall willingly into so dangerous, vexatious, and costly errors; errors, which will strip us, which will put a yoke upon us; errors which will put us in prison; no, to fly from these we too oft fly from the truth itself, when 'tis as open as the day, and commands or faith though not our tongue, and forceth our assent, when we renounce it. Private interest, love of ourselves, fear of restraint, hope of advancement, these are the mothers commonly of this monster which we call error when we do not err, and in these it is engendered and bred, as serpents are in carrion or dung. He that errs and loseth by it, errs most excusably, and shows plainly that he would not err, for who would do that which will undo him?  
Again, take him in the City, in which he bore the highest honour, and filled the greatest place, and was rather an ornament to it then that unto him; for he sat in it as a stranger and a pilgrim, as a man going out of the world, nor did so much consider his power as his duty, which looked forward, and had respect on that which cannot be found in this, but is the riches and glory of another world; and therefore this world was never in his thoughts, never came in to sour Justice, to turn judgement into wormwood by corrupting it, or into vinegar by delaying it; no cries of orphans, no tears of the widow, no loud complaints of the oppressed to disquiet him in his passage, which use to follow the oppressor even to the gates of hell, and there deliver him up to those howl which are everlasting. How oft hath he been presented to me, and that by prudent and judicious men, as the honour and glory of the City? And thus he went on his way full of temptations and troubles, and full of honours, even of those honours which he refused, for you may remember how he bore this great office, and you may remember how he refused it, and gained as much honour in the hearts of men by the last as by the first; as much honour by withdrawing himself and staying below, as he did formerly in sitting in the highest place with the sword in his hand. For the state and face of things may be such, as may warrant Demosthenes wish and choice, and make it more commendable in exilium ire quàm tribunal, to go into banishment then to ascend the tribunal; for he best deserves honour, who can in wisdom withdraw himself; he can best manage power, who knows when to lay it down.  
Bring him now from the public stage of honour to his private house, and there you might have seen him walking, as David speaks, in the midst of his house in innocency and with a perfect heart, as an Angel or intelligence moving in his own sphere, and carrying on every thing in it with that order and Decorum which is the glory of a stranger; whose moving in it is but a going out of it to render an account of every act and motion; you might have beheld him looking with a settled and  eye of love on his wife, walking hand in hand with her for forty four years, and walking with her as his fellow-traveller, with that love which might bring both at last to the same place of rest. You might behold him looking on his children with an eye of care as well as of affection, initiating them into the same fellowship of pilgrims; and on his servants, not as on slaves, 
Quid Servus? Amicus humilis.  but as his humble and inferior friends, as Seneca calls them, and as his fellow-pilgrims too; and thus he was Domesticus Magistratus, a Domestic Magistrate, a lover and example of that truth which Socrates taught, that they who are good Fathers of their family will make the best and wisest Magistrates; they who can manage their own cockboat may be fit at last to sit at the stern of the commonwealth; for a private family is a type and representation of it, nay, saith Eusebius, (in the life of Constantine) of the Church itself.  
I confess I knew but in his evening, when he was near his journey's end, and then too but at some distance; but even then I could discover in him that sweetness of disposition, that courteous affabibility, which Saint Paul commends as virtues, but have lost that name with Hypocrites, with proud and supercilious men, who make it a great part of their Religion to pardon none but themselves, and then think that they have put off the old man when they have put off all humanity. In these Omilitick virtues I could discern a fair proficiency in this reverend Knight, and what my knowledge could not reach was abundantly supplied and brought unto me by the joint testimony of those who knew him, and by a testimony which commends him to heaven, and God himself, the mouths of the poor which he so often filled. Thus did he walk on as a stranger, comforting and supporting his fellow-Pilgrims, and reaching forth his charity to them as a staff. Thus he expressed himself living, and thus he hath expressed himself in his last Will, which is voluntas ultra mortem, the Will, the Mandate, the Language of a Dead man; Speculum morum, saith Pliny, the Glass, wherein you may see the Charity, that is, the Face, the Image of a Pilgrim, by which he hath bequeathed a Legacy of Comfort and Supply (a plain acknowledgement that he was but a stranger on the earth) to every Prison, and to many Parishes within this City, and remembers them who are in bonds, as one who himself was in the body, and sometimes a prisoner as they. I know, in this world it is a hard thing Justum esse sine infamia, to be good and not to hear ill; expedit enim malis neminem esse bonum, for evil men make it their work to deface every fair image of virtue, and then think well of themselves when they have made all as evil as themselves; but it was this our honoured brother's happiness to find no accuser but himself, I may truly say, I never yet heard any; but report hath given him an honourable pass: the voice of the poor was, He was full of good works; the voice of the City, he was a good Magistrate; the voice of his equals, he was a true friend; the voice of all that I have heard, he was a just man; and then our charity will soon conclude he was a good Christian, for he lived and died a son of the Church, of the reformed, and according to the way which some call Heresy, some Superstition, so worshipped he the God of his Fathers.  
And now he is gone to his long home, and the mourners go about the streets: He is gone to the grave in a full age, when that was well near expired which is but Labour and sorrow, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, as Cyril speaks, grown in wisdom and grace, which is a fairer testimony of age then the grey hairs or fourscore years; his body must return to the dust, and his soul is returned to God that gave it; and being dead he yet speaketh, speaketh by his Charity to the Poor, speaketh by his fair example to his Brethren of the City, to honour and reverence their Conscience more than their Purse, 
— vitamque impendere vero,  and to be ready to resign all, even life itself for the truth; he speaks to his friends, and he speaks to his relict, his virtuous and reverend Lady, once partner of his cares and joys, his fellow-travellour, and to his children, who are now on their way, and following a pace after him, weep not for me, why should you weep? I have laid by my Staff, my Scrip, my provision, and am at my journey's end at rest; I have left you in a valley, in a busy tumultuous world, but the same hand, the same provision, the same obedience to God's commands will guide you also, and promote you to the same place, where we shall rest and rejoice together for evermore. There let us leave him in his eternal rest with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, with all the Patriarches, and prophets, and Apostles, all his fellow-Pilgrims and strangers, in the Kingdom of Heaven.  
FINIS.   

By the forced absence of the Author from the Press, besides many points mistaken, these Errata have escaped, which the Reader is desired to amend as he finds them.  
PAg. 4. l. 12. r. Transacted. p. 12. l. 23. r. riddle. p. 25. l. 7.5. These will bring in. p. 26. l. 39 r. not because he cannot, but because he will not. p. 27. l. 13. r. bought, mortal. pag. 33. marg. Eulalia. p. 39 l. 10. not. p. 65. l. 14. cast himself into hell. p. 83. ult. this noise when.  
PAg. 10. l. 5. for that hath. p. 13. l. 14. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. ibid. l. 19 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. p. 14. l. r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. ibid. marg. Tit. for Tim. ibid. l. 7. in them. p. 16. c. 6. entered. p. 17. l. 21. Sublunary. p. 23. l. 39 be the cause. p. 24. l. 25. founded on. p. 35. l. 40. beautifying. p. 45. l. 3. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. p. 54. l. 30. for and, are. p. 58. l. 27. for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. p. 63. l. 19 affectual. p. 75. l. 9 about. p. 78. marg. for Deus, Duos. p. 89. l. 30. breath of fools. p. 89. l. 32. abfuerunt. p. 99 l. 8. of the object. p. 100 l. 27. for innocence, justice. p. 104. l. 27. start back. ibid. l. 30. intention. ibid. l. 33. shunk. p. 108. l. 40. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. p. 118. l. 27. victo: viâ for victoriâ. p. 121. l. 4. worn out with. p. 122. l. 7. steam. p. 125. l. 32. maintaining some errors. p. 126. l. 35. that which was. p. 136. l. 31. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. ibid. l. 42. measured out. p. 137. l. 25. Add, that which is done often with that which is done always. p. 161. l. 9 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. p. 192. l. 18. aegris. p. 168. l. 33. r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. p. 178. l. 13. add, many times makes us speak what otherwise we would not. p. 207. l. 15. r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. p. 208. l. 25. r. shines. p. 228. l. 29. r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. p. 230. l. 16. r. the memory. p. 241. l. 5. r. lifts us. p. 242. l. 37. r. over that. p. 244. l. 5. r. non exercere. p. 240. l. 25. r. not his mercies. p. 250. l. 13. r. to file and hammer them. p. 251. l. 39 r. of their faith. ibid. l. 43. r. and now this heartless. p. 252. l. 25. r. but then. p. 253. l. 6. r. God will do. p. 260. l. 9 r. reviled. p. 264. l. 1. r. usurp. p. 266. l. 18. r. disarm death. p. 283. l. 23. r. Salviguardium. ibid. l. 34. Deal The third inference. p. 300. l. 33. r. Petrus Damiani. p. 304. l. 44. r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. p. 306. l. 15. r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. p. 307. l. 41. r. faceremus. p. 325. l. 30. r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. p. 331. l. 24. r. wasting ourselves. p. 337. l. 46. r. For want of this. p. 338. marg. for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. 343. l. 9 r. the love of that. p. 344. l. 3. r. sound. p. 345. l. 3. r. as the occasion of sin. p. 350. l. 10. r. define them. p. 351. l. 30. r. see in them. p. 353. l. 37. r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. p. 354. l. 14. r. if he be. p. 359. l. 20. r. and last of all. p. 362. l. r. r. make us feel. p. 363. l. 3. r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. p. 364. l. 14. add, which when we cannot fill up etc. ibid. l. 41. r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. p. 368. l. 34. r. tune. p. 370. l. 41. r. sticks it in them. p. 373. marg. r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. p. 374. l. ult. r. Cynic. p. 403. l. 3. r. is this faith. p. 427. l. 37. r. kicking. p. 447. l. 13. r. ●. p. 478 l. 3. r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. p. 521. l. 11. r. now bowing. p. 537. l. 3. r. they leave a soul. p. 574. l. 33. r. seen in our cities. p. 619. l. 22. r. to be removed.